INDIA - Prayer for seven innocent Christians of Orissa who are imprisoned

Kochi (Agenzia Fides) - The Church in India is in prayer for the release of seven innocent Christians in the Indian state of Orissa, in prison for nine years. Their names are: Bhaskar Sunamajhi, Bijay Sanseth, Buddhadev Nayak, Durjo Sunamajhi, Gornath Chalanseth, Munda Badamajhi and Sanatan Badamajhi. As Fides learns, the seven, originally from Kandhamal district, theater of anti-Christian violence which took place in 2007 and 2008, are unjustly accused of being among those responsible of the killing of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, killed in Orissa on 23 August 2008. In 2013 a district court sentenced them and an appeal trial is pending at Cuttack High Court. The hearing of the trial has been postponed several times. The episode of Hindu leader's death was the spark that triggered the anti-Christian violence in 2008. Christians were accused in a pretestuous way of murder, then claimed and attributed to Maoist groups.

In recent days, in an assembly of priests held in Kerala on "What Happened in Kandhamal?", the present recalled that the Indian Church organized prayer vigils for the Indian Salesian Fr. Tom Uzhunnalil, kidnapped in Yemen and then released. "Now it is urgent to pray for the innocent of Kandhamal", says to Fides journalist and Catholic intellectual Anto Akkara, who has traveled many times to the district and has written several books on the subject. In one of these investigative books, titled "Who Killed Swami Laxmanananda?", the journalist reports evidence that clears the seven Christians name.
Some priests, in collaboration with Akkara, have elaborated a special prayer that will spread among the Catholic communities in Orissa and other states of India. Bishops, priests, religious and lay Indians throughout the country have confirmed that they will join the prayer campaign for the seven innocent victims. "I have no doubt that faith must lead to action. The blood of martyrs' will inspire the faithful to support the voiceless. After the launch of the campaign, thousands have already begun praying for the innocent of Kandhamal", says Akkara to Fides.

Human rights activists, social workers, journalists, and leaders of the Church have contested the district court's conclusions that condemned the seven Christians at first instance: the verdict was based on the theory of a conspiracy lacking evidence and authenticity. Akkara also launched an online petition for the release of the seven, sending it to the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court of India, to the President of India and the President of the National Human Rights Commission. "This is for me a journey of faith. The Lord has guided my path in the past nine years, and the petition and the campaign of prayer emerged from the desire for truth and justice", concludes Akkara.
The district of Kandhamal in the State of Orissa (or Odisha) experienced inter-community tensions and an unprecedented wave of violence during Christmas in 2007 and then since August 2008. The violence lasted for at least four months, killed more than 100 people and 56,000 were left without a home
 

If Christian ministries are kicked out of India, who will share the Gospel?

India, October 13, 2017: You’ve heard us talk about Christian ministries being kicked out of India, including Compassion International earlier this year. A report from India Briefing last month shows that 24,000 NGOs have now lost their licenses under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act in the last year. That is one-third of the NGOs that previously existed in India before the FCRA.
Many organizations lost their NGO status in India for simply not filing the proper paperwork. But the NGO reporting requirements have shifting demands and sometimes sudden deadlines. Ministries have shared it seems like these are hurdles meant to make it increasingly difficult for non-Hindu groups to stay in the country.
One of the high-profile cases was Compassion International whose license in India was revoked earlier this year. They were carrying out ministry to vulnerable children through local partners in the country.
The Voice of the Martyrs USA’s Todd Nettleton explains, “Many of those local partners were rejected from a license to accept funding from outside the country. So what the Indian government basically did is cut off the flow of funds that were helping those Christian organizations do that ministry on the ground in India. Because of that, many of those organizations have had to stop the ministry. Many of the outside groups have had to stop funding ministry in India because that money is not allowed to be transferred into the country.”

Since India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in 2014, hostilities against Christians have nearly doubled. His background with radical Hindu nationalists and the RSS have emboldened those groups in their push to make India a totally Hindu nation.
So if Christian ministries are being systematically kicked out of India, who will carry on the spread of the Gospel?
Nettleton says, “Obviously the local Church is picking up that mantle and carrying it forward and sharing the Gospel. Thankfully, there is a great history of Christianity in India. There are churches and groups that have been operating for decades that are ready to pick that mantle up and carry it forward. But it is a challenge.”
The challenge comes when the local Church has to sometimes carry on ministry initiatives that were supported by other churches and organizations outside the country. In that, we need to pray for God to bless these ministry initiatives, and even seek out other Christian ministries to support that are still able to send funds to India.

Christian ministries that are still in India have to be cautious with how obvious they are in their Gospel outreach to avoid the crosshairs of the FCRA. And accusations akin to anti-blasphemy under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code are becoming more frequent. But they don’t want to compromise the biblical message of hope in Christ just to stay in the country. So where is the balance?
“That is a challenging question for the different ministries to answer as they go forward,” observes Nettleton. “[There is] that fine line of, well, we want to be able to stay in the country so we want to be careful about how we talk about what we do, but we also want to be representatives of Jesus Christ and we want to be inviting people into fellowship with Him. We’re not going to compromise on that. So that’s where that challenge comes in how you do the work on a day-to-day basis and how you talk about the work, both inside the country and to your donors and your supporters around the world.”

In addition to praying for Christian ministries and the local Church in India, there’s something else you can pray for.
“Maybe something we don’t think about as much is praying for the persecutors. We want to encourage people to pray for even radical Hindu nationalists, people in the RSS to come to faith in Christ, to have an encounter with a Christian that shakes up their worldview. You know, when Christians respond to persecution with love and forgiveness, that really plants a seed of the Gospel in the heart and in the mind of the persecutor because it’s not a human response, it’s not a natural response. It’s a supernatural response,” says Nettleton.
“The only explanation is Jesus Christ is real and he is living and he empowers people to endure persecution with faith and with courage.”
- mnn
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Pope praises 'beautiful, complex' diversity of Catholic Churches in India

Vatican City, Oct 10, 2017 / 11:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Tuesday said the variety of Catholic Churches and rites in India is a richness for the country that ought to be strengthened, and as a means of doing so, he expanded the reach of one of the country's indigenous Churches.
The decision moves toward a greater allowance for several bishops from distinct Catholic Churches in India having a presence in the same territory.
“In a world where large numbers of Christians are forced to migrate, overlapping jurisdictions have become customary and are increasingly effective tools for ensuring the pastoral care of the faithful while also ensuring full respect for their ecclesial traditions,” Pope Francis wrote in an Oct. 10 letter addressed to India's bishops.
He said the diversity of ecclesial life in the country “shines with great splendor throughout lands and nations.”
Two Catholic Churches based in India's Kerala state trace their origins to the preaching of the Apostle Thomas: the Syro-Malabar Church, which follows the East Syrian or Chaldean rite; and the Syro-Malankara Church, of the West Syrian or Antiochian rite.

The Latin rite Catholic Church also has a large presence throughout India, having been introduced to the country by missionaries in the 16th century.
The various Catholic rites in India, Pope Francis said, constitute a historic Christian presence in India “that is both rich and beautiful, complex and unique.”
“It is essential for the Catholic Church to reveal her face in all its beauty to the world, in the richness of her various traditions,” he said, and noted how the Second Vatican Council sought to “protect and preserve the treasure of the particular traditions of each Church,” an ongoing mission today.
His letter accompanied an announcement on the establishment of two new eparchies (the equivalent of a diocese in the Latin Church) for the Syro-Malabar Church.
The establishment of the eparchies of Shamshabad (in Uttar Pradesh) and Hosur (in Tamil Nadu) was announced along with the name of their first respective bishops: Bishop Raphael Thattil, until now Auxiliary Bishop of the Syro-Malabar Archdiocese of Trichur, and Fr. Sebastian Pozholiparampil, a priest of the Syro-Malabar Diocee of Irinjalakuda. The Shamshabad eparchy will include the entire country of India not already included in existing Syro-Malabar eparchies.

Pope Francis also extended the boundaries of the eparchies of Ramanathapuram and Thuckalay, both of which are located in Tamil Nadu state.
In addition to his role as bishop, Thattil also serves as apostolic visitor for Syro-Malabar faithful in India who live outside of their own territory, reporting his observations to Rome.
Pope Francis' decision to establish new eparchies for the Syro-Malabar Church and widen its jurisdiction to essentially all of India mirrors a similar decision he made in August with the Syro-Malankara Church, when he reinforced their own presence with the establishment of a new eparchy and an apostolic visitor to the Syro-Malankara Church in Europe and Oceania.
The establishment of the eparchies also takes place as the Congregation for the Oriental Churches celebrates its centenary with a variety of activities in Rome, culminating in Mass with Pope Francis at the Basilica of St. Mary Major Oct. 12.
In his letter, Pope Francis noted that “In India, even after many centuries, Christians are only a small proportion of the population and, consequently, there is a particular need to demonstrate unity and to avoid any semblance of division.”

He stated that when the Syro-Malabar Church expanded with missionary eparchies to parts of northern and central India, “it was generally thought by the Latin Bishops that there should be just one jurisdiction, that is, one bishop in a particular territory. These eparchies, created from Latin dioceses, today have exclusive jurisdiction over those territories, both of the Latin and Syro-Malabar faithful.”
“However, both in the traditional territories of the Eastern Churches, as well as in the vast area of the so-called diaspora (where these faithful have long been established), a fruitful and harmonious cooperation between Catholic bishops of the different sui iuris Churches within the same territory has taken place.”
Overlapping jurisdictions in India “should not longer be problematic,” the Pope wrote, noting that they have already existed in Kerala for some time, and his own expansion of the Syro-Malankara Church in recent years.
“These developments show that, albeit not without problems, the presence of a number of bishops in the same area does not compromise the mission of the Church. On the contrary, these steps have given greater impetus to the local Churches for their pastoral and missionary efforts.”

He voiced hope that his decision to broaden the reach of the Syro-Malabar Church would be “welcomed with a generous and peaceful spirit, although it may be a source of apprehension for some, since many Syro-Malabars, deprived of pastoral care in their own rite, are at present fully involved in the life of the Latin Church
Francis stressed his conviction that “there is no need for concern: the Church’s life should not be disrupted by such a provision.”
“Indeed it must not be negatively interpreted as imposing upon the faithful a requirement to leave the communities which have welcomed them, sometimes for many generations, and to which they have contributed in various ways. It should rather be seen as an invitation as well as an opportunity for growth in faith and communion with their sui iuris Church, in order to preserve the precious heritage of their rite and to pass it on to future generations.”

“The path of the Catholic Church in India cannot be that of isolation and separation, but rather of respect and cooperation,” he said, adding that the presence of several bishops of various rites “will surely offer an eloquent witness to a vibrant and marvelous communion.”
Francis closed his letter urging the Catholic Churches in India “to be generous and courageous as they witness to the Gospel in the spirit of fraternity and mutual love.”
“For the Syro-Malabar Church, this continues the valued work of their priests and religious in the Latin context, and sustains their availability for those Syro-Malabar faithful who, although choosing to attend Latin parishes, may request some assistance from their Church of origin. The Latin rite Church can continue to generously offer hospitality to members of the Syro-Malabar communities who do not have church buildings of their own.”
He said that “with the growth of spiritual friendship and mutual assistance, any tension or apprehension should be swiftly overcome. May this extension of the pastoral area of the Syro-Malabar Church in no way be perceived as a growth in power and domination, but as a call to deeper communion, which should never be perceived as uniformity.”

Hundreds of thousands pray rosary at Polish border

Faithful pray from the Baltic Sea coast in the north to the mountains in the south

Polish Catholics held rosaries and prayed together along the country’s 2,000-mile border on Saturday, appealing to the Virgin Mary and God for salvation for Poland and the world in a national event that some felt had anti-Muslim overtones.

The “Rosary to the Borders” event was organised by lay Catholics but was also endorsed by Polish church authorities, with 320 churches from 22 dioceses taking part. The prayers took place from the Baltic Sea coast in the north to the mountains along Poland’s southern borders with the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and all along the border of this country of 38 million where more than 90 per cent declare themselves Catholics.
Organisers say the prayers at some 4,000 locations commemorated the centenary of the apparitions of Fatima, when three shepherd children in Portugal said the Virgin Mary appeared to them.
But the event also commemorated the huge 16th-century naval battle of Lepanto, when a Christian alliance acting on the wishes of the Pope defeated Ottoman Empire forces on the Ionian Sea, “thus saving Europe from Islamisation,” as organisers put it. Prime Minister Beata Szyd?o showed her support by tweeting an image of rosary beads with a crucifix and sending greetings to all the participants.
While organisers insisted the prayers Saturday were not directed against any group, some participants cited fears of Islam among their reasons for praying at the border.

Halina Kotarska, 65, travelled 145 miles from her home in Kwieciszewo, central Poland, to express gratitude after her 29-year-old son Slawomir survived a serious car wreck this year. She described it as a miracle which she attributed to Mary’s intercession.  She said she was also praying for the survival of Christianity in Poland and Europe against what she sees as an Islamic threat facing the West.  “Islam wants to destroy Europe,” she said. “They want to turn us away from Christianity.”

Poles also prayed in chapels at airports, seen as gateways to the country, while Polish soldiers stationed in Afghanistan prayed at Bagram Airfield there, the broadcaster TVN reported. A leading Polish expert on xenophobia and extremism, Rafa? Pankowski, saw the prayers as a problematic expression of Islamophobia coming at a time of rising anti-Muslim sentiment in Poland, a phenomenon occurring even though the country’s Muslim population is tiny. “The whole concept of doing it on the borders reinforces the ethno-religious, xenophobic model of national identity,” said Pankowski, who heads the Never Again association in Warsaw.

At the Polish-Czech border near the town of Szklarska Poreba, hundreds of pilgrims arrived in buses and cars to pray at the Karkonosze mountain range. The procession, which included young and old and families pushing children in strollers, was made up of pilgrims who held rosaries and prayed to the Virgin Mary, braving the cold and rain. “It’s a really serious thing for us,” said Basia Sibinska, who travelled with her daughter Kasia from Kalisz in central Poland. “Rosaries to the Border means that we want to pray for our country. That was a main motive for us to come here. We want to pray for peace, we want to pray for our safety. Of course, everyone comes here with a different motivation. But the most important thing is to create something like a circle of a prayer alongside the entire border, intense and passionate.”

In the northern city of Gdansk, people prayed on a beach lapped by waves as seagulls flew above. Krzysztof Januszewski, 45, said that he worries Christian Europe is being threatened by Islamic extremists and by a loss of faith in Christian societies.  “In the past, there were raids by sultans and Turks and people of other faiths against us Christians,” said Januszewski, a mechanic who travelled 220 miles to Gdansk from Czerwi?sk nad Wis??. “Today Islam is flooding us and we are afraid of this too,” he added. “We are afraid of terrorist threats and we are afraid of people departing from the faith.”

The Eucharistic miracle of Sokolka: The host is tissue from heart of a dying man

Laboratory analyses confirm that the structure of the cardiac muscle fibers and the structure of the bread are intertwined in a way impossible to reproduce by human means.

Every day, on the altars of Catholic churches around the world, the greatest miracle possible takes place: the transformation of bread and wine into the true Body and Blood of Christ.  Nonetheless, when we receive Communion, we can only touch its true nature with our faith, because our senses only perceive bread and wine, physically unaltered by the consecration.

What are the implications, then, of the Eucharistic event in Sokolka, Poland?

It took place on Sunday, October 12, 2008, two weeks after the beatification of Servant of God Fr. Michael Sopocko. During the Holy Mass celebrated at the parish church of St. Anthony in Sokolka, at 8:30 a.m., a consecrated host fell from the hands of one of the priests during the distribution of Communion, next to the altar. The priest interrupted the distribution of Communion and picked up the host, and, in accordance with liturgical norms, placed it in a small container of water—in this case, one found in some churches beside the tabernacle, where the priest may wash his fingers after distributing Communion. The host was expected to dissolve in the water, which would later be disposed of properly.

Sister Julia Dubowska, of the Congregation of the Eucharistic Sisters, was the parish sacristan. At the end of the Mass, at the request of the pastor, Fr. Stanislaw Gniedziejko, she poured the water and the host into another container. Knowing that the consecrated host would take some time to dissolve, she placed the new container in the safe located in the parish sacristy. Only she and the pastor had the keys to the safe.

A week later, on October 19, Mission Sunday, when the pastor asked her about the condition of the host, Sister Julia went to the safe. When she opened the door, she noticed a delicate aroma of unleavened bread. When she opened the container, she saw, in the middle of the host—which was still largely intact—a curved, bright red stain, like a blood stain: a living particle of a body. The water was untainted by the color. The sister immediately informed the priest, who brought in the other priests at the parish and the visiting missionary, Fr. Ryszard Gorowski. They were all amazed and left speechless by what they saw.  They kept a discreet and prudent silence about the event, considering its importance; this was a consecrated host which, by the power of the words of Christ at the Last Supper, was truly His Body. From a human point of view, it was difficult at that point to define if the altered form of the remainder of the host was the result of an organic growth, a chemical reaction, or some other cause. They immediately notified the metropolitan archbishop of Bialystok, Edward Ozorowski, who went to Sokolka with the chancellor of the Curia and other diocesan officials. They were all deeply moved by what they saw. The archbishop ordered that the host be protected while they waited to see what would happen.

On October 29, the container with the host was transferred to the Divine Mercy Chapel in the rectory, and placed in the tabernacle. The next day, by decision of the archbishop, the stained host was taken out of the water and placed on a small corporal, which was then put back in the tabernacle. The host was kept this way for three years, until it was solemnly brought to the church on October 2, 2011. During the first year, it was kept secret. During that time, the Church authorities reflected on what to do, since they were dealing with a sign from God which needed to be interpreted.  By mid-January of 2009, the altered fragment of the host had dried out naturally, and remained like a blood stain or clot; since then, its appearance has not changed. That same month, the archbishop requested histopathological studies be done on the host. On March 30, he created an ecclesial commission to study the phenomenon.

A piece of the altered host was taken and analyzed independently by two experts, Prof. Maria Sobaniec-Lotowska, MD, and Prof. Stanislaw Sulkowski, MD, in order to ensure the credibility of the results. Both are histopathologists at the Medical University of Bialystok. The studies were carried out at the university’s Department of Pathomorphology. The specialists’ work was governed by the scientific norms and obligations for analyzing any scientific problem in accordance with the directives of the Scientific Ethics Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The studies were exhaustively described and photographed. The complete documentation was given to the Metropolitan Curia of Bialystok.

When the samples were taken for analysis, the undissolved part of the consecrated host had become embedded in the cloth. However, the red blood clot was as clear as ever. This transformed part of the host was dry and fragile, inextricably interwoven with the rest of the fragment, which had kept the form of bread. The sample that was taken was large enough to carry out all the necessary studies. The results of both independent studies were in perfect agreement. They concluded that the structure of the transformed fragment of the host is identical to the myocardial (heart) tissue of a living person who is nearing death. The structure of the heart muscle fibers is deeply intertwined with that of the bread, in a way impossible to achieve with human means, according to the declaration of Prof. Maria Sobaniec-Lotowska.

The studies proved that no foreign substance was added to the consecrated host; rather, part of the host took the form of heart muscle of a person near death. This kind of phenomenon is inexplicable by the natural sciences. At the same time, the Church teaches us that the consecrated host becomes the Body of Christ, by the power of His own words at the Last Supper, repeated by priests during the consecration of the Mass.

The results of the histopathological studies, dated January 21, 2009, were included in the dossier given to the Metropolitan Curia of Bialystok. In its official communiqué, the Metropolitan Curia of Bialystok stated:  “The Sokolka event is not opposed to the faith of the Church; rather, it confirms it. The Church professes that, after the words of consecration, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the bread is transformed into the Body of Christ, and the wine into His Blood. Additionally, this is an invitation for all ministers of the Eucharist to distribute the Body of the Lord with faith and care, and for the faithful to receive Him with adoration.”

India third among countries that faced most natural disasters: Guterres
Climate change was among the seven global threats that he listed needing immediate global action.
September 19, 2017, 4:24 PM
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends a bell-ringing ceremony at UN headquarters in New York, Sept. 15, 2017. (IANS)

India ranked third among the countries that have faced the most natural disasters in the last half century, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday pleading for unwavering international action on climate change. In his first speech to the annual high-level meeting of the General Assembly, he said, "It is high time to get off the path of suicidal emissions. We know enough today to act." "I urge governments to implement the historic Paris Agreement with ever greater ambition," he said.

United States President Donald Trump has declared that his country is pulling out of the Paris agreement on combating climate change. Pointedly, Guterres said, "The United States, followed by China, India, the Philippines and Indonesia, have experienced the most disasters since 1995 - more than 1,600, or once every five days." Climate change was among the seven global threats that he listed needing immediate global action. International terrorism is taking a great toll on the world, he said and called for intensifying the global efforts against terrorism and radicalisation.

"Stronger international cooperation remains crucial," he said. "Together, we need to make full use of UN instruments, and expand our efforts to support survivors. But he added, "Experience has also shown that harsh crackdowns and heavy-handed approaches are counterproductive." Foremost among the seven perils he listed is the nuclear threat emanating from North Korea. "Global anxieties about nuclear weapons are at the highest level since the end of the Cold War," Guterres warned. "The fear is not abstract. Millions of people live under a shadow of dread cast by the provocative nuclear and missile tests of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

He appealed to the Security council to act unitedly to meet the threat and to all countries to comply with its resolution imposing sanctions. "Only that unity can lead to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and -- as the resolution recognises -- create an opportunity for diplomatic engagement to resolve the crisis," he said while condemning Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests. "The dark side of innovation" is another global peril, he said, adding "it has moved from the frontier to the front door." "Cyber war is becoming less and less a hidden reality -- and more and more able to disrupt relations among States and destroy some of the structures and systems of modern life," he said. Genetic engineering has also raised ethical questions that have not been resolved, he said.

The humanitarian crisis from unresolved conflicts and violations of international law that is manifested in the flow of refugees is another peril the world faces, he said. He mentioned the Rohingya crisis, and said, "The authorities in Myanmar must end the military operations, and allow unhindered humanitarian access. They must also address the grievances of the Rohingya."

The other threats are the growing inequality among nations and within nations, and human migration. Emphasising the need for global unity to meet the great perils facing humanity, Guterres said, "We come from different corners of the world. Our cultures, religions, traditions vary widely -- and wonderfully. At times, there are competing interests among us. At others, there is even open conflict." "That is exactly why we need the United Nations, he said. "That is why multilateralism is more important than ever."

IANS

Archaeologists may have discovered the place where Jesus performed the “miracle of the swine”

A marble slab was uncovered with an inscription in Hebrew that might indicate the exact location of the event.

The Gospel of Mark recalls the arrival of Jesus to the northeastern region of the Sea of Galilee, the Kineret:
They reached the territory of the Gerasenes on the other side of the lake, and when he disembarked, a man with an unclean spirit at once came out from the tombs towards him. The man lived in the tombs and no one could secure him any more, even with a chain, because he had often been secured with fetters and chains but had snapped the chains and broke the fetters, and no one had the strength to control him. All night and all day, among the tombs and in the mountains, he would howl and gash himself with stones. Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran up and fell at his feet and shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? In God’s name do not torture me!” For Jesus had been saying to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit.” Then he asked, “What is your name?” He answered, “My name is Legion, for there are many of us.” And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the district. Now on the mountainside there was a great herd of pigs feeding, and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us to the pigs, let us go into them.” So he gave them leave. With that, the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd of about two thousand pigs charged down the cliff into the lake, and there they were drowned.
Recently, a group of archaeologists discovered a marble slab in the shores of the Kineret, with an inscription in Hebrew that might indicate the exact location of this event, known as the “miracle of the swine.” According to the team, it might have occurred in Kursi, a town located in the land of the Gadarenes (or Gerasenes), in the southern part of the Golan Heights.
“The presence of a Hebrew settlement near the eastern shore of the Sea of ??Galilee is a very strange phenomenon,” exhlaind Haim Cohen, a researcher at Haifa University. In fact, the settlement was only discovered because of a drop in water levels that allowed researchers to find a pier normally under water and, next to it, the Kursi settlement. The the 1,500-year-old slab was found inside a building that would have functioned as a synagogue.
The marble slab would shed light on the issue. Being 1.40 meters by 70 centimeters, on its surface there is a Hebrew inscription in which the experts were able to identify the words “amen” and “marmaria,” which might translate either “Mary,” “marble” or “rabbi.” As read in Primeros Cristianos and Israel En Línea, according to Professor Mijal Artzi, the full text “is composed of eight lines; usually not so many words in Hebrew letters are carved in stone. The assumption is that the person to whom the inscription was dedicated had an enormous influence on the local population.”
 

Turin Shroud stained with blood of torture victim, new research claims

Researchers say the Shroud contains ‘nanoparticles’ of blood that are typical of someone who has experienced violent trauma

The Shroud of Turin is stained with the blood of a torture victim, scientists have claimed.
Researchers in Italy said the linen cloth, which is believed to have been wrapped around Christ’s body after he was crucified, contains ‘nanoparticles’ of blood that are typical of someone who has experienced violent trauma.
Elvio Carlino, a researcher at the Institute of Crystallography in Bari, Italy says the particles suggest “great suffering”.
Professor Giulio Fanti of the University of Padua added that the particles have a “peculiar structure, size and distribution” and the blood contains high levels of creatinine and ferritin, typically found in patients who have suffered traumas such as torture.
“Hence, the presence of these biological nanoparticles found during our experiments point to a violent death for the man wrapped in the Turin Shroud,” Professor Fanti said.
The particles “cannot be artefacts made over the centuries on the fabric of the Shroud,” he added.
The findings appear in an article titled ‘New Biological Evidence from Atomic Resolution Studies on the Turin Shroud’, published in American scientific journal PlosOne.
The researchers used methods recently developed in the field of electron microscopy to analyse the Shroud.
Carlino said this was the first study of “the nanoscale properties of a pristine fibre taken from the Turin Shroud.”

Catholic college in Kansas wipes ‘yoga’ from names of classes — it’s a Hindu thing

An online petition posted by students calls on Benedictine President Stephen D. Minnis to “bring back yoga!” So far, it has received 105 online signatures. The petition has also drawn the support of Rajan Zed, a well-known Hindu cleric in Nevada, who urged the college to “relook into their reported yoga decision.”

Complaints, Johnson said, began to come in from alumni, students, faculty and some administrators who argued that as a Hindu practice, yoga was not in keeping with Catholic-based education. Others, Johnson said, argued that the name yoga should no longer be used because in teaching just the exercise aspects of yoga — as opposed to both its physical and spiritual aspects — Benedictine wasn’t teaching true yoga. Thus it should not use the Hindu name.
The college’s school newspaper, The Circuit, first reported on the move April 5 and noted that concern also was raised by Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, and Abbot James Albers of St. Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison.

The paper quoted college President Minnis.
“Yoga as created has some potential for eastern mysticism which has caused concern among members of the Catholic Church,” Minnis told the college paper. Archbishop Naumann “has expressed his concerns and the issues surrounding that. We asked ourselves if there was a way to bring those yoga benefits to our students and faculty without the possible effects of eastern mysticism.”
Contacted by The Star, the archdiocese sent the following statement from its chancellor, the Rev. John Riley.
“Many people do not realize that yoga … is intended to be more than a series of exercises coupled with deliberative breathing and meditation,” Riley said in an emailed statement. “It is a mind and body practice developed under Hinduism, the goal of which is spiritual purification that will lead to a higher level of understanding and eventually union with the divine.
“Although the Catholic Church teaches that much good can be found in other religions, Catholics believe it is only brought to fullness in Christ. … It is for these reasons that Catholics are alerted to the dangers of the practice of yoga and are encouraged to look for other exercise alternatives that do not incorporate a spiritual dimension.”
Riley said if Catholics want exercises that include a spiritual dimension, they should consider Pietra Fitness, a set of exercises that includes Christian prayer and meditation.
Benedictine yoga instructor Julie Romano, a yoga practitioner for 10 years, questioned the decision.
“I have a moral objection to taking something that people spent thousands of years working on and calling it something else,” she told the school paper. “I don’t see a conflict in yoga and Catholicism and I don’t see why we should call it something else to appease others.”
Eric Adler

Argentine priest in railway accident attributes life to Eucharist

By Giselle Vargas

Mendoza, Argentina, Apr 21, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Holy Thursday Father Alejandro Béjar, a priest of the Archdiocese of Mendoza, narrowly escaped being killed by a train. He attributes his survival to consecrated Hosts he was transporting on his way to visit the sick.

The April 13 incident took place at a railroad crossing in San Roque as Fr. Béjar was on his way to visit several sick persons, in addition to saying three Masses in the communities under his care.
Fr. Béjar, 50, told CNA that he crossed the railroad tracks that day for lack of a signal and got trapped. He explained he did not see the rails because of some bushes, and that there was no railroad crossing barrier.
Trapped on the tracks he could hear the train's horn, and saw the train appear, coming around a curve.

Within seconds, he tried moving his car. He was unable to, so he quickly unfastened his seat belt and ran from the car.
His Ford Escort was struck, and dragged some 80 feet by the train, which was unable to brake in time. The vehicle was destroyed but the priest could not get over his astonishment that the bag holding the consecrated Hosts on the front passenger seat was undamaged and remained in place.

“That's strange because in the back of the car there was a bag of fine flour I was taking for the community where I was going to celebrate Mass. That bag opened up and (the flour) spread all over, but the bag (with the Hosts) didn't even move,” he said.

Fr. Béjar said he was ashamed he did not take with him the consecrated Hosts when he abandoned the vehicle, but he thanked God for saving him from the onslaught of the train.
“I thank God because I was calm and didn't despair. It was a sign from God that he was present at that moment and helped me have those reflexes to stay calm and not give up hope,” he said.
The priest was unable to get the first Mass on his schedule for that day.
Fr. Béjar noted that eight years ago two women died in similar circumstances, and so he hopes the authorities will clean up the area from bushes and put up appropriate railroad crossing signage.
 

Beirut Bishop Kourie says the two bishops abducted in Syria in 2013 are still alive
Fady Noun

The Lebanese Syriac Orthodox bishop made the claim during the celebrations for the 47th anniversary of Virgin's apparitions. The portraits of the two bishops were displayed inside the church and taken in procession. The prelate appealed to the Lebanese government to make the case a "national cause".

Beirut (AsiaNews) – The two bishops of Aleppo abducted in 2013 in Syria are still alive, said Mgr Daniel Kourie, Syriac Orthodox bishop of Beirut, who spoke on Saturday at the ceremony marking the 47th anniversary of the Virgin Mary's apparitions over the dome of the cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Moussaitbeh, near Beirut.

The commemoration of these apparitions, which this Church invariably commemorates on the first Sunday after Easter, coincided this year with the 4th anniversary of the abduction in Syria (22 April 2013) of the Syriac Orthodox and Greek Orthodox bishops of Aleppo, Youhanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi, whose fate remains unknown. The portraits of the two bishops were displayed inside the cathedral and carried during the torchlight procession that marked the anniversary of the apparitions.

During the ceremony for the dual anniversary, Bishop Daniel Kourie, chairman of the commission charged with the affair, tried to be reassuring. As far as he knew "the two bishops are still alive. [. . .] Those who believe otherwise must give us evidence for their claim." The prelate added that the commission has knocked on every possible door, in Lebanon and Syria, doing their best, to find the two bishops.

Bishop Kourie called on Lebanese authorities to make this case a national cause given its impact on interfaith coexistence and dialogue. He slammed "religious and ethnic cleansing in Syria, Iraq and Egypt" and the states that support it by providing men, weapons and money.

The apparitions of the Virgin at Moussaitbeh, a mixed district of Beirut with a substantial Syriac community, are similar to those that occurred in Zeitoun (1968). The Syriac Orthodox Church considers them authentic and solemnly recognised them in a patriarchal decree. Unfortunately, they have not received the attention they deserve from the other Eastern Churches in Lebanon, all of which had turned inward at the time of the events, even though these events resonated as a warning and an appeal for openness and unity, in the face of the initial rise of the Islamist peril.
 

India: Masses interrupted, pastors arrested, allegations of forced conversions: Easter plight of India’s Christians

Santosh Digal e Nirmala Carvalho

Bishops, activists and ordinary people complain about incidents of violence and intimidation across the country. Despite constitutional guarantees, the Christian minority is being persecuted. The threat on Palm Sunday: "If you want to pray, you must have official permission."

New Delhi (AsiaNews) - Incidents of violence, intimidation and harassment against Christians in India, a discriminated minority oppressed by the majority Hindus. Even on Palm Sunday and Holy Week before Easter. As reflected in the stories of what happened throughout the national territory, pastors and believers arrested, prayer meetings suppressed, masses interrupted, arrests on false accusations of proselytism, tribals forced to "return home", that is to Hinduism. Bishops, activists and ordinary people speak to AsiaNews pointing out that India is a secular and democratic country only on paper (constitutional), and over the years has become increasingly prey to the Hindu nationalists, led by the central government (BJP Bharatiya Janata Party) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On April 7, the radical nationalist youth brigade Hindu Yuva Vahini, created in 2002 by Yogi Adityanath, the current chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, raided a Dadhauli church in Maharajganj district (Uttar Pradesh), and interrupted the church service. There were about 150 faithful in the church at that time, including 10 American tourists. All Christians, including the pastor Yuhanna Adam, were arrested by police on charges of forced conversions to Christianity. Msgr. Thomas Thuruthimattam, bishop of Gorakhpur, complains: "It was a real indirect attack on religious freedom. These indirect threats are against the principles established in the Constitution, against people who are represented in the Constitution itself. "

Witnesses say that the nationalists insulted, intimidated and provoked Christians, although police established the falsity of the disputed charges. The pastor Adam also reports that young people entered the church with an excuse: "They arrived early in the morning, asking to visit the facility for its historical value. How could we stop them? The church is open to all and everyone is welcome at any time. Later, as soon as the Mass began, the group with saffron bandanas [typical of nationalists headgear, ed] came back with police. The police immediately blocked the function and asked everyone to leave the building. "

Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), criticizes the behavior of the police: “India is a Secular Democratic Republic with Constitutional Guarantees, no illegalities were being done at the Church event, yet the police stopped Worship services under the baseless charges of conversion activities. GCIC fears the increasing insecurity and targeting of the vulnerable Christian minority.”

The Christian leaders also condemned the “shameful act of targeting the tourists for attending worship is denounced and condemned by GCIC. Moreover, it repeats the same old stereotype, of missionaries being out to ‘convert’ the gullible masses.It is a very common sight to see western tourists in saffron robes attend all hues of Hindu festivals in India, very often they are also seen distributing copies of Hindu texts and books at various places, but the police neither stop them or arrest them, But when the western tourists attend Worship, they are detained and harassed. This is a grave human right violation”.

Since last month in Jharkhand radicals of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have "brought home to the Hindu family" 53 tribal families, including the last seven in early April. The campaign of tribal conversion will last throughout the month. Sajan K George denounces "the tribal Hindus have never been Hindu, therefore, an attempt to bring them back to the Hindu fold is just a way to harass them." Then he poses a technical question: "To what caste they would like to include them, since the tribals are not Hindus?".

On April 8 in Bangalore, Karnataka, a Christian event scheduled for the next day was canceled at the last moment. The authorities withdrew permission to carry out the event, which had more than 1,000 people registered who were supposed to attend a conference of two American evangelical pastors. The event was canceled after Girish Bhardwaj, radical Hindus, filed a complaint with the Immigration Service against the hypothetical attempt to convert by the two foreigners holding a visa that allowed them only to participate in the rally , and not to speak in public. The GCIC president expresses a strong condemnation of the incident and asked the Prime Minister of India to "invite the state governments to ensure the safety of Christians during Holy Week."

Indeed, preparations for Easter have also been marred in India, as well as the attacks against Coptic churches in Egypt. On Palm Sunday many episodes of intolerance occurred across the territory. In Madhya Pradesh, in the village of Sitabedi, members of the RSS - accompanied by police - have interrupted the celebrations and arrested the pastors Amar Singh Solanki, Kishore Solanki Barela and Prabhakar, their wives and other Christians on charges of forced conversions . The same charges have been laid against pastor Yashpal, whilst celebrating mass in Kaithal, Haryana. In the village of Jahanpur, in Uttar Pradesh, other Hindu extremists beat Pastor Paul Krishna, the Believer's Church, and dragged him to the police station. The same fate has befallen the pastor Saji Mathew of the Church of God in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, who was arrested along with seven other Christians. Finally Taluka in Palani, Tamil Nadu, some administration officials privately broke into the pastor Gunasekaran’s residence while he was leading prayer. The authorities took photographs and filmed the people attending the function. They have also warned that if Christians want to pray in the future, they will have to obtain an official permit.

The Holy Sepulcher: Archaeology says the Evangelists were right

 Forum Libertas | Apr 19, 2017.  Thomas Coex | AFP

What the opening of the marble slab of the Edicule revealed

On October 20th, 2016, one of the most exciting events in centuries took place: the opening of the marble slab guarding the place tradition claims was the tomb of Jesus, inside the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
Underneath that slab there was a second slab, also of gray marble, containing a slit along its side and bearing a Lorraine Cross. Most likely, this is from the time of the Crusades, from the beginning of the 12th century.
Once the second slab was removed, the surprises began, according to testimonies gathered from different sources. Right below this slab, a fundamental piece of the site was discovered: an ordinary stone bench excavated in the rock that is directly connected with the vertical wall, also excavated in the rock behind it.
The chronicles of medieval travelers such as Félix Faber (1480), who saw the edicule without the actual covering marbles, testify that the bank and wall formed a single piece of stone. This corresponds to the northern wall of the small room: the place traditionally venerated as Jesus’ tomb.
The second surprise revealed the south wall of this room corresponded to a second vertical wall, also made out of ordinary rock, about two meters high. In sum, the Edicule of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher contains a site consisting of two stone walls (north and south) and a bank (to the north side) — all dug out of the rock. This setup corresponds to a “sepulchral chamber” one could only gain access by going down, as it was below the level of the outer land. The original stone floor of the tomb, still to be discovered, is to be found under the present marble pavement.
The archaeological elements described agree with the documentary data of the Gospels, as in Matthew 27, Mark 15-16, Luke 24, and John 19-20. That is why it is legitimate to suppose that this is in fact the tomb of Jesus.
Relatively close to the place in which Jesus was crucified, Joseph of Arimathea owned a tomb, which had not yet been used by anyone. (Jewish burial customs at the time usually dictated quick burial in a shallow grave covered with stones for the poor, with the wealthy purchasing family tombs, or sepulchers, where bodies would be laid in niches carved out of the walls. There were also stone benches for the preparation of the body or for visitors to the family tomb.) This tomb was to be closed with a large stone that had to be rolled over in order to cover the entrance, according to the Gospels. This kind of closing is precisely the one that was used for sepulchral chambers, commonly carved in the rock, as the one discovered under the Edicule’s marble slab. One could only walk in by slightly descending to gain access to the place in which the corpse was deposited: that is to say, the aforementioned stone bench. The Gospels claim that Mary Magdalene “bent down to look into the tomb.”
The stone bank is also mentioned in the gospels of Mark and John. In Mark 16:5, it is said that the women entered the tomb and found “a young man seated in a white garment.” Evidently, one could only sit on such marble bench, and not in a niche. John 20:12 one speaks of “two angels dressed in white, sitting in the room [that is, again, the area of the bench] where the body of Jesus had been placed.”
When Jesus was buried, on a Friday, right before the sunset, they did not place the body in a niche but rather on the stone bench, as mentioned in the Gospels. The reason for this decision is that Jesus had died after considerable physical aggression, and his body was in an unfortunate state, and needed proper preparation, which could not be provided at the moment, as the Sabbath rest was about to begin. It was customary among the Jews of the time to wash and anoint with aromatic oils the bodies of the deceased before burying them. But as Jesus had to be buried in a hurry, his body was left on the stone bench, covered hastily with a shroud.
Even if faith in the Resurrection might not lean on logical demonstrations, it doesn’t imply a leap into an irrational vacuum either. Research shows archaeological data and the Gospels agree. The archaeological facts are not to be understood as demonstrations that ground (or not) what is a matter of faith, but they indeed stimulate reasonableness, based on verisimilitude.
The canonical gospels are indeed documents belonging to the first centuries of Christianity, and can be read like any other ancient historical document. From them, a religious revolution sprang out: the one that began on a bench dug in the rock, inside a sepulcher, in Jerusalem, two thousand years ago.

The 30th Annual Way of The Cross by The Catholic Secular Forum (CSF)

Sacred Heart Church 10.30 am to St. Charles Convent 3.30 pm

Join Thousands in the ICAN - CSF Walk to Pray for PersecutorCSF’s Christian Response to Attacks in India & Abroad.Thousands to  Fast, Suffer & Pray at Catholic Forum’s Good Friday Walk
Christians publicly forgive attackers, pray for the victims & the country

Prayer Points

* Nuns Raped
* 7000 Indian Victims
* Properties Targeted
* Christians Murdered
* Churches Desecrated
* Clergy & Believers Attacked
* Women & Children Not Spared
* Situations Abroad Resulting from Fundamentalism & Terrorism

Will you be one among the walking pilgrims ? Or will you worship Jesus in the comforts of the church ?

Thousands of Christians will undertake an exhausting walk, in a public gesture of forgiving those responsible for the attacks on Christians, churches and the clergy, which has risen sharply over the past few months. " The intention is to offer a Christian response which is in keeping with what Jesus did on the first Good Friday, when he said, 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do' about his persecutors. We want to tell India and the world that we forgive those who target us, our clergy, institution and properties; but are grieved and cry out that we need to be treated as equal citizens and the law should take its course ", said Joseph Dias, general secretary of the Catholic Secular Forum (CSF), the activist community NGO that organized the pilgrimage.

Starting out from Sacred Heart Church in Santacruz West, in suburban Mumbai, the pilgrims will brave the scorching heat, most of them fasting and praying until the religious service called the Stations of the Cross concludes at around 3 pm in the evening. Along the way at various stops over the almost 8 Km route, activists dramatized incidents, believed to have happened when Jesus was killed over 2000 year ago. The serpentine procession will pass through the lanes of Mumbai’s Khar, Santacruz, Vakola and Kalina with the crucifixion scenes being enacted (as in the Philippines) which is a tearful finale. Many of the pilgrims go bare feet at the end of a fulfilling spiritual experience of 40 days of prayer, fasting and repentance.

The 'Way of the Cross' devotion or Walk with Jesus relating the suffering of Christ to modern-day living is in its 30th year and draws Christians from all over, with even children, women, priests and nuns joining in to partake in portrayal of the torture and killing of Jesus, enacted through a musical played out on the streets. The faithful mourned for the intention of the day – Christians denied freedom of faith and religious liberty.

Speaking on the theme, Joseph Dias, who started this tradition in India 29 years ago, which has not found a parallel in the country said, " There seems to be a sinister plan to the attacks and the powers behind them could range from political and economic to the persecution being part of an international design to target Christians as is happening in the Gulf or African countries. In the country, the attacks are in the background of new governments both at the centre and states, who are responsible for law and order. Among the comity of nations, the image assiduously cultivated by the prime minister is taking a hit, as he is seen unwilling to reign in those attacking the community.

Indian Christians do not see these as isolated incidents, especially given the increase in frequency and the fact that they are backed by statements from prominent fundamentalists or even elected public representatives. We are alarmed and afraid at the attempt to demonize Christians and have the community's basic human rights violated. We are seen as soft-targets as we do not retaliate, as commanded by our faith and this makes the government all the more duty-bound to ensure that our rights guaranteed are not trampled upon ".

According to The CSF press release, " the government apathy towards Indian Christians is taking its toll, even as communal elements target the community. Jesus told us to pray for our persecutors and this is a public display of our hurt sentiments and a cry for justice. There can be no development without peace, justice or communal harmony ". Forms of discrimination faced by the community mentioned were those of police action, political alienation, bureaucratic victimization, anti-conversion laws, targeted violence, economic deprivation, social boycott, etc.The 30th Annual Way of The Cross by The Catholic Secular Forum (CSF)

Some of The 15 Stations of the Cross will be enacted are – the arrest of Jesus, Jesus being sentenced by Pontius Pilate, the falls of Jesus, Jesus meeting the women of Jerusalem, his mother and disciples at the cross, Veronica wiping the face of Jesus… This, the activists feel is a dignified Christian way of protesting against the subtle and not so subtle attacks on the community.

Thousands of passer-byes will witness the Calvary (place where Jesus was crucified) story, with biblical characters acting out the arrest and the last few hours before Jesus death. Similar enactments are known to happen in the Philippines and Latin America, with a couple of Christians actually being nailed to a cross, to experience in a small way Jesus' suffering.

Joseph Dias added that " initially it started since many non-Christians believed that Good Friday was a feast, rather than a day of mourning. He pointed out that “while fundamentalists of various hues and colours are persecuting Christians, the inaction and official neglect by the government is appalling. As a micro minority, who are not aggressive, politically influential and spread out; the governments of the day takes us for granted. This therefore also signals the heralding of Christians as vociferous and politically active citizens”.

The pilgrims will stop still for a special prayer at 3 pm, believed to be the time, when Jesus died or the moment of grace to pray for the intentions and the theme. They now look forward to a new hope, that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead on Easter Sunday brings, which will also be enacted, since Christians believe that the crucifixion in not the end.
 

The Republic of Congo was recently consecrated to the Virgin Mary

The current Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, recently visited the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville). This trip ended with the act of consecration of the country to the Virgin Mary, during a Mass celebrated on Saturday, February 4, 2017.

Three thousand faithful were present at the National Basilica of St Anne of Brazzaville. The civil, diplomatic and military authorities also attended the ceremony. The Mass was concelebrated by the Apostolic Nuncio, Bishop Francisco Escalante Molina, the bishops of the country and 150 priests.
The cardinal received warm applause for his homily. He spoke of Christ’s love, which the Congo needs. A love that is in fact "capable of resisting the temptation of indifference and considering the good of others as its own good."

In the same way, the cardinal affirmed that "the good Christian is above all the one who commits himself every day to walking with God and living in harmony with Him, doing good and fleeing evil."

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death.
Amen.
 

Jesuit Manuel Carreia: "Islam, the Worst Plague the Human Race Has EverSeen"

(Madrid) the famous astrophysicist and Jesuit, Father Manuel Carreira, has said "Islam, the worst plague that the human race has ever seen."

In an interview Carreira had indirectly responded  to a discussion on West Germany and said that one could not plausibly claim that "Islam is compatible with the rights of a European nation".

Astrophysicist and Jesuit

The Spaniard Manuel Maria Carreira Verez SJ became famous mainly as an astrophysicist, but also as a philosopher and theologian. Since 1974 he is a member of the Vatican Specula, was an employee at numerous NASA projects in the United States and taught more than 30 years at various universities, including the John Carroll University in the US and the Pontifical University of Comillas in Spain.

In an interview with El Español he addressed some current issues, including the migration crisis, the relationship between the West and Islam, and the relationship between the state and Church.

The State must preserve Christian heritage, he does not want to jeopardize its existence

"The state need not impose any specific religious behavior," but it has to be taken into account, that the Western countries are based on Christian ethics, because this has formed these States and made them what they are and what is necessary to defend.

"The Catholicity is a central key element in the development of the state", which applies to all of Western Europe. Therefore, the European countries could not accept the abolition of Christianity without putting their very existence at risk.

There is growing secularization, and this was "up to a certain point, even desirable, because religion must not be a political element." But the state has the task and duty to protect its Christian heritage as part of the common good.

Islam is "completely unable" to respect human dignity and human rights

Carreira mainly sees a threat to Western countries, and that is above all Islam. "I would say that Islam is the worst plague that  humanity has seen in the past 2000 years.". Islam is "completely unable" to develop, respect for human dignity.

For Muslims it is therefore "impossible to respect human rights and the Western tradition".

A Muslim in Europe "denies either this respect, then is an internal threat to Europe, or he accepts European thought, which means he is an unbeliever and is dead according to Islamic understanding." Either way, "there is no positive contribution by Islam to a modern society that is respectful of the fundamental rights of every human being," said Carreira.

Idea of ??the multicultural state "an intellectual blunder"

For this reason, the astrophysicist and Jesuit sees in the idea of ??a multicultural state an "intellectual blunder". It lacks any "reasonable relation to reality". Father Carreira said: "It seems to me that one can not plausibly claim that Islam is compatible with the rights of a European nation."

"Islam," said the Jesuit, "was created as decaffeinated Christianity because they simply have obscured what they did not understand in Christianity: one no longer talked about the Trinity, nor the incarnation of God for the simple reason that they had not understood it. "Therefore, Islam is a 7th - 9th Century developing form of "a minimalist distorted Christianity" with its "own theology," which is of a  "very simple thinking."

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Jailed Christians forced to convert to Islam, a disgrace on the justice system says Pakistani Church
J
Kamran Chaudhry

The accused are asked to change religion in exchange for their release. The latest case sparks protest among Christians. Girls are converted by force to marry Muslims whilst Christians men who marry Muslim are beaten and their homes torched. Even Asia Bibi was offered to convert to Islam.

Lahore (AsiaNews) – Religious leaders and Christian activists are calling for action against a prosecutor who confessed to pushing Christian prisoners to give up their faith to embrace Islam.
This comes after Pakistani media reported that Deputy District Public Prosecutor Syed Anees Shah told 42 Christian prisoners before an anti-terrorism court in Lahore, Punjab, that he could “guarantee their acquittal” if they converted to Islam.
Contacted by a British newspaper, Shah first denied the allegation then conceded that he had offered them a choice.
The Christians involved in the case are all from Youhanabad, Lahore. They were arrested in connection with the lynching of two suspected Muslim terrorists shortly after the Taliban attacked two churches on 15 March 2015.
“It is really bad to lead people astray,” said Rev Arshad Ashknaz of Christ Church, from one of the churches attacked in Youhanabad, speaking to AsiaNews. “This,” he added, “will give a bad image to the court and the whole legal fraternity.
In his view, “The public prosecutor can be sued for this prejudiced action. We plan to meet him soon. The government should reject this. Fear of death can force anyone to change religion”.
This has not happened in isolation. Forced conversions are a hot topic in the country. Pakistani human rights organisations note that each year about a thousand Hindu and Christian women are forced to convert to marry Muslim men.
According to the latest Report on religious minorities in Pakistan by the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Pakistan, five Christians converted to Islam in 2014, including three teenager girls who were abducted and forced into marriage.
Against the backdrop, Sindh last year became the first Pakistani province to pass a law against forced religious conversions. However, the provincial government was forced to go back on its decision to protect minorities after opposition from some religious scholars.
For Rev Ashknaz, “There is no religious freedom. The whole system supports Christian women who marry their Muslim spouses, but it is a torment for Christian men who do the same. Their families suffer and their houses are burnt”.
According to Nadeem Anthony, a Christian lawyer, Asia Bibi, the Christian mother on death row for the past seven years charged with blaspheming the Prophet Mohammad, was made a similar offer.
However, “My faith is alive and I will never convert”, she told him when they met at the Sheikhupura District Jail in 2010.
“This is a common practice. Even my Muslim friends asked me to do the same. Such impositions are expected in cases of religious persecution”, said the lawyer, who is also a human rights activist.

Pope Francis' latest prayer video spotlights Christian persecution

Vatican City, Mar 2, 2017 / 11:47 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his prayer video for March, Pope Francis prays for persecuted Christians, asking for the prayers and aid of the whole Church toward those mistreated on the basis of their beliefs.

“How many people are being persecuted because of their faith, forced to abandon their homes, their places of worship, their lands, their loved ones!” the Pope says in the video.

Released March 2, the video shows people from different countries being photographed as if arrested, then holding up signs reading “Protestant,” “Catholic,” and "Orthodox.”

“They are persecuted and killed because they are Christians,” the Pope says. “Those who persecute them make no distinction between the religious communities to which they belong.”

The video continues with real footage of destroyed churches in the Middle East, followed by clips of adults and children praying in a church, at home, and at a school, and people packing up food at a food bank, as the Pope asks: “how many of you pray for persecuted Christians?” “Do it with me, that they may be supported by the prayers and material help of all the Churches and communities.”

An initiative of the Jesuit-run global prayer network Apostleship of Prayer, the Pope’s prayer videos are filmed in collaboration with the Vatican Television Center and mark the first time the Roman Pontiff’s monthly prayer intentions have been featured on video.

The Apostleship of Prayer, which produces the monthly videos on the Pope’s intentions, was founded by Jesuit seminarians in France in 1884 to encourage Christians to serve God and others through prayer, particularly for the needs of the Church.

Since the late 1800s, the organization has received a monthly, “universal” intention from the Pope. In 1929, an additional missionary intention was added by the Holy Father, aimed at the faithful in particular.

Starting in January, rather than including a missionary intention, Pope Francis has elected to have only one prepared prayer intention – the universal intention featured in the prayer video – and will add a second intention focused on an urgent or immediate need if one arises.

According to a report released in January, global persecution of Christians has risen for the fourth year in a row and is on a “rapid rise” in Asia.

The advocacy group Open Doors UK warned in its annual report on Christian persecution, released Jan. 12, that “Persecution levels have been rising rapidly across Asia and the Indian subcontinent, driven by extreme religious nationalism which is often tacitly condoned, and sometimes actively encouraged, by local and national governments.”

Overall persecution of Christians has risen from last year, Open Doors UK noted, stating that “Christians are being killed for their faith in more countries than before.”

“Christians living in these countries need the support of their family, the body of Christ, to help them stand firm in their faith,” they stated.

Archbishop Nassar described Syria as 'a huge disaster zone' of 'ghost neighbourhoods and towns destroyed to the ground'

The Marionite Archbishop of Damascus has written a pastoral letter describing the challenges of daily life in war-torn Syria.

In a letter released on Ash Monday – the beginning of Lent in the Eastern and Oriental Catholic Church – Archbishop Samir Nassar speaks of five of the horrors experienced in the Syrian Civil War.
Entitled “A Very Bitter Lent”, the pastoral letter portrays the “apocalyptic scene” that Syria has been reduced to.
“It is a huge disaster zone of debris, carbonised buildings, burned down houses, ghost neighbourhoods and towns destroyed to the ground,” Archbishop Nassar writes, “More than twelve million Syrians, 50 per cent of the population, are lacking a roof.”

The letter goes on to describe shattered family life and the sacrifice of childhoods.

“The children are the most fragile,” he says, “They have paid a great price for this merciless violence.
“The centres of psychological support cannot overcome the number and depth of wounds and psychic blocks. How do we restore the spirit of these children destroyed by violence and barbaric scenes?”
The archbishop adds that there has been a severe decline in parish life, pointing to the departure of a third of clergy from the Church of Damascus as a blow to the Christian minority in the country.
He goes on: “The priests struggling to remain without any reassurances consider negotiating their eventual departure. They only wait for humanitarian agencies to arrive to assist broken families.”
Finally, Archbishop Nassar writes that Syrians have lost all hope of finding freedom through fighting and daily life is simply about survival.
“Their daily combat is finding bread, water, gas and fuel, which are harder and harder to find. Electrical shortages have become more frequent and lengthy. These darken nights and reduce any social life.
“The search for lost brotherrs, parents and friends is a very discrete, anxious and hopeful undertaking.”
The letter concludes with a request from the archbishop for Syrians to recommit themselves to the Church and to find rest in Christ during “this bitter Lent of 2017”.
Archbishop Nassar’s letter in full:

A Very Bitter Lent

1) An Apocalyptic Scene
In six years of war the face of Syria has changed quite a lot. It is a huge disaster zone of debris, carbonised buildings, burnt-down houses, ghost neighbourhoods and towns destroyed to the ground. More than twelve millions Syrians, 50% of the population, are lacking a roof.
They form the largest mass of refugees since the Second World War. Several millions have left the country in search of more merciful skies. Many are waiting for mercy in camps of misery, some have drowned attempting to leave, and others are in line at embassies, nomads in search of a welcoming land. How can they leave this Syria of torments?

2) A Shattered Family
The family, which fortifies Church and Nation and has saved the country in the past, is heavily shaken. Seldom is a complete family found. Violence has scattered this basic cell of society. Some family members are in graves, others in exile, in prison or on the battlefield. This painful situation is the cause of depression and anxiety and forces those few left without support to beg.
Young fiancées, separated by this exodus, the immigration of their partner or military mobilisation, cannot marry. Crisis surrounds them. A hope for their future has crumbled. How is it possible to follow course without a family or with a broken family?

3) A Sacrificed Childhood
The children are the most fragile. They have paid a great price for this merciless violence. According to UNESCO, more than three million Syrian children haven’t attended school because they have to prioritise their physical wellbeing. Those that have been to school witness the demise of the quality of teaching due to fewer faculty and students in remaining schools. These overwhelming circumstances impose academic failure.
The centres of psychological support cannot overcome the number and depth of wounds and psychic blocks. How do we restore the spirit of these children destroyed by violence and barbaric scenes?

4) Threatened Parishes
Parishes have seen the number of parishioners diminish and pastoral activities reduced considerably. The priests are deprived of the means to provide human and spiritual support. The Church of Damascus has witnessed the departure of one third of their clergy (27 priests). This is a hard blow weakening the place and role of the Christian minority already in decline.
The priests struggling to remain without any reassurances consider negotiating their eventual departure. They only wait for humanitarian agencies to arrive to assist broken families.
How do we fix this alarming haemorrhage?
Can we imagine a Church without priests?

5) Between Pain and Freedom
The Syrian people are no longer looking for liberty. Their daily combat is finding bread, water, gas and fuel, which are harder and harder to find. Electrical shortages have become more frequent and lengthy. These darken nights and reduce any social life.
The search for lost brothers, parents and friends is a very discrete, anxious and hopeful undertaking.
Finding a little room for shelter in a country in ruins has become an impossible dream for families and even more for young fiancés.
Fighting for liberty or searching for bread, what course should one take?
This little Syrian population lives this reality with pain visible in silent looks and streams of tears.
This bitter Lent of 2017 offers us time in the desert to take a good look at our commitment to the Church in the midst of faithful in distress, to lead the way towards Christ Resurrected. Christ Light of the world who knows the hearts of men and women says: “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Iraqi Christians erect large cross in area liberated from ISIS

Cross erected in Telekuf-Tesqopa, Iraq. Credit: Patriarchate of Babylon.

Mosul, Iraq, Feb 23, 2017 / 04:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After years of darkness, hope has returned to Telekuf-Tesqopa. Located just 17 miles from Mosul, the village is rebuilding after being liberated from ISIS.
As a visible sign of the rebuilding, a giant cross was erected on a hill, marking the victory of the Christian faith against the darkness of the jihadists.
On Feb. 18, the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Baghdad, Louis Sako, visited the village, where he blessed the large cross and participated in the celebration of the first Mass after two and a half years in Saint George Church.
According to the website of the Patriarchate of Babylon, the authorities and officials of the region were present at the celebration.
In his homily, Patriarch Sako said that this event is “the first spark of light shining in all the cities of the Nineveh Plain since the darkness of ISIS, which lasted almost two and a half years.”
“This is our land and this is our home,” he told the faithful. He also said that now is the time to regain hope and for the people to return to their towns to begin a new stage of life.
The patriarch said that Christians will thus demonstrate to the world that the forces of darkness, which wreaked havoc and ravaged their land, are ephemeral and that the Church of Christ, although it suffers, is built upon rock.
When the Mass was over, everyone went out to a hill located on the outskirts of the city. There Patriarch Sako blessed the huge cross which was raised amid fireworks and with cries of “Victory! Victory! Victory!  For those who chose the faith and those who return!”
The Catholic Patriarch said that this cross will announce “to the world that this is our land, we were born here and we will die here. Our ancestors were buried in this pure land and we are going to remain to preserve them with all our might and for future generations.”
“It is a sincere and great call to return and rebuild. We are joined to our land, to our future on the land of our ancestors. Here we can be proud of our history and here we can obtain the granting of all our rights,” Patriarch Sako said.
Before the celebration of the Mass, a delegation came to Telekuf-Tesqopa to assess the state of damage and to thus ask for the support of international organizations for reconstruction. Saint George Church was cleaned by volunteers from the French aid organization SOS Chrétiens d’Orient. (SOS Christians of the East).
The placement of crosses has become a recurring gesture since the Iraqi Army began the offensive to recover the city of Mosul, the ISIS stronghold in Iraq.
In every village liberated on the Plain of Nineveh, Christians have made wooden crosses and have placed them on the roofs of churches and homes.
Muslims have also participated in these events. Last week, a group of Muslims youths joined those cleaning a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary located in east Mosul, liberated by the Iraqi Army.
This action is part of a campaign that seeks to remember the religious coexistence that was present in the city before the jihadists occupied it in 2014.

Hundreds of Christians have fled the city of el-Arish in Egypt after a spate of attacks by suspected Islamic militants.
Egyptians carry candles during a vigil for the victims of a bomb explosion that targeted the St Peter and St Paul Coptic Orthodox Church on December 11, 2016 (Photo: Getty)

A priest says 1,000 Christians have fled, with some receiving threats on their mobile phones

A priest told the Associated Press that he and some 1,000 other Christians had fled for fear of being targeted next. He blamed lax security, saying: “You feel like this is all meant to force us to leave our homes. We became like refugees.”

It was earlier reported that militants had shot dead a Coptic Christian man, Kamel Youssef, in front of his wife and daughter. The account had been given by two officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

A priest in the city said militants then kidnapped and stabbed his daughter before dumping her body near a police station. It wasn’t immediately possible to confirm his account.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack but earlier this week Egypt’s Islamic State group affiliate, which is based in the Sinai Peninsula, vowed in a video to step up attacks against the embattled Christian minority. A spate of killings by suspected militants have spread fears among the Coptic community in el-Arish as families left their homes after reportedly receiving threats on their mobile phones.

A day before Youssef’s killings, militants killed a Coptic Christian man and burned his son alive, then dumped their bodies on a roadside in el-Arish. Three others Christians in Sinai were killed earlier, either in drive-by shooting or with militants storming their homes and shops.

The Coptic Church has made no official comment on the spate of murders.

Coptic Christians, who make up 10 per cent of Egypt’s population, have increasingly come under attack since the military’s overthrow of elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. A top target of Islamic extremists throughout the years, the Christians heavily supported the army-chief-turned-president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and his security crackdown on Islamists since Morsi’s removal.

The priest, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said a total of 30 Christians — including Coptic soldiers — have been killed since then, including two priests.

The northern region of Sinai, bordering Gaza Strip and Israel, has been a battleground between the military and Islamic militants since 2011 when the region sank into lawlessness during the 18-day uprising that led to the ouster of longtime autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.

Since then, there have been waves of Christian displacement. The first one was from the town of Rafah when the only church, the Holy Family, was looted, torched and destroyed in several militant attacks. The church is built on the site where Christians believe the Holy Family first stopped to rest after crossing into Egypt. Subsequent waves followed militants’ threats in past years. According to the priest, less than 1,000 remain.

El-Sissi declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the volatile region in 2014 in the aftermath of deadly suicide bombings that killed over 30 soldiers. Blaming the stepped-up militancy on Gaza’s ruling Hamas group, which uses underground tunnels for smuggling contraband, the Egyptian military razed hundreds of houses in the border area to create a buffer zone and stop what it described as the infiltration of extremists from Gaza.

Since 2013, Islamic militants have carried out several suicide bombings across Egypt, mainly against the police and the army. However, in December, an IS-affiliated suicide bomber blew himself up inside a landmark Cairo church, killing around 30 worshippers, mostly women.

That attack marked a turning point in the Sunni militant group’s strategy as Christians became its top targets. The extremists have used Christians’ support for el-Sissi as a pretext to increase attacks against them.

The Islamic State group’s video, released on Monday, showed the bomber behind the December church attack and described the Christians as “infidels” who are empowering the West against Muslim nations.

Congo Catholics targeted by violence

Several religious communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were subjected to violent attacks last weekend. In Kinshasa, pamphlets are being distributed, calling for the destruction of Catholic schools and churches.
Jean-Paul Musangania and Loup Besmond de Senneville - February 22, 2017

Congolese achieved an agreement between the government and the opposition at the end of 2016 but it is yet to be implemented. / T. Mukoya/Reuters

“The Catholic Church is being deliberately targeted, in order to destroy its mission of peace and reconciliation.”Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo is angry. In a message published on Sunday, the Archbishop of Kinshasa, the DRC's capital, strongly condemned the violent attacks on a parish and a major seminary.
“Along with all bishops, we denounce these acts of violence, which are likely to plunge our country further into unspeakable chaos.”The Cardinal seldom expresses his opinions, which makes his statement all the more powerful.The first attack, on Saturday, was the ransacking of the major Seminary of Malole of Kananga, in central Kasai, a province in the center of the DRC.

“They systematically broke down the doors to different rooms and destroyed everything inside. They entered the teachers’ rooms and burned their belongings,” Father Richard Kitenge, the Seminary Rector, told Agence France-Presse.The men responsible for this violence belong to a militia operating in the name of a traditional chief, Kamwina Nsapu. The group uses many child-soldiers.The second act of violence on the same weekend was the attack on a parish in Kinshasa by about a dozen men. Before Mass, the furniture of Saint Dominic’s Church was broken, the altar was vandalized and the tabernacle desecrated. A community of nuns not far from the parish was also attacked.“The police arrived too late …

We are all in shock,” said Father Julien Wato, the Dominican priest of the Kinshasa church.Although he went on to say that he is not afraid for his own safety, he spoke about the tense mood in the Congolese capital.“In the street, it’s not unusual to hear threats against the Church.”Two suspects have been arrested and the church was closed for several days.On Sunday, Pope Francis called upon the country’s leaders to stabilize the situation quickly. He condemned, in particular, the use of child-soldiers.
"I suffer deeply for the victims, especially for so many children ripped from their families and their schools to be used as soldiers,” he stated.Are these violent attacks linked to the actions of the Catholic Church that, for the past few months, has been mediating between those in power and the opposition?

The intention of the mediation is to get the country out of the political crisis caused by President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to step down, even though his mandate ended on 20 December.The link is plausible.  St Dominic’s Church in Kinshasa is not far from the headquarters of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), the opposition party that, until his death on 1 February in Brussels at the age of 84, was led by Étienne
Tshisekedi.Tshisekedi’s death was announced, certain party members threatened to seize the property and assets of the Catholic Church.
This was because they are angry about the delay in the implementation of the agreement on a political transition, signed on 31 December.
The agreement allows the President to remain in power until elections are held at the end of 2017 and a successor takes office. During this period, a person picked by the opposition will serve as prime minister and have powers that would check Kabila's authority.

Under the terms of the agreement, brokered by the Catholic Church, Kabila cannot seek a third term in office, which would violate the constitution.For several days, pamphlets have been circulating in Kinshasa, calling for the destruction of Catholic schools and churches, and religious communities.In this time of tension, Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo called upon the political leaders of the Congo to abandon their moral turpitude.“We are asking each one of them to demonstrate wisdom, restraint and the spirit of democracy to resolve the issue regarding the designation of a prime minister”, he said.Monsengwo added that this was necessary “to alleviate the current crisis that could threaten the elections that are meant to be held at the end of this year, in accordance with the St Sylvester agreement".

“Politicians ought to acknowledge with humility, before their nation and the international community, their political tendencies and the immorality of their self-serving decisions," Monsengwo stated. He said this situation is "leading to impasses and institutional deadlock".
“History will hold them accountable.”

Iraqi Christian: ‘IS made me spit on a Cross’
Zarefa was forced
to convert to Islam and spit on a Cross.
Published on: 8:52 am, January 19, 2017 by: mattersindia.com

Fr. Habib
One of the major themes explored in Martin Scorsese’s film, Silence, is the question of how to respond when faced with a choice between denying one’s faith or facing death.
Christians in 17th century Japan were given this choice, and it’s the same for Christians in many parts of the world today.
Throughout the film, the audience is shown Christians being told to step on – or, in one case, spit on – an image of Jesus or Mary. Some do; others can’t.
This same choice was given to Zarefa, an elderly Iraqi Christian woman, when the Islamic State captured her town in 2014. During a raid on the house where she was staying, IS fighters found a few crucifixes and other Christian images – strictly illegal under IS rule.

“They forced me to spit on the Cross,” Zarefa recalls. “I told them that it was not appropriate, that it was a sin. He said that I must spit. ‘Don’t you see that I have a gun?’ he asked me. I said to myself, ‘Oh, the Cross! I am weak, I will spit on you. But Lord, I ask you to take revenge for me. I cannot escape from this.’”
I said to myself, ‘Oh, the Cross! I am weak, I will spit on you. But Lord, I ask you to take revenge for me. I cannot escape from this.’
The shame is still visible on Zarefa’s face when she recounts the memory; her town, Qaraqosh, is liberated now, but she is still recovering from the traumatic two years that are only just behind her.
Zarefa’s husband died shortly after Qaraqosh was captured. She remembers the warning signs in the days beforehand, when a group of teenagers on motorbikes chastised her for speaking in Syriac – a language closely related to the Aramaic that Jesus spoke.
“Speak our language!” they shouted, in Arabic, the language of Islam.

By that time, many families had already left Qaraqosh, after IS had overpowered and completely overrun the Iraqi army, leaving the Christians unprotected.
For Zarefa, running was no option. Her husband was dying and she had no enemies in the town; she thought the two of them would be left in peace.
Zarefa was one of the few Christians who decided to stay in Qaraqosh.
But Zarefa soon found out there is no such thing as living in peace under IS rule.
She shared how, soon after IS came, her husband passed away, leaving her a widow and more vulnerable than ever.
She moved in with neighbours, but IS fighters repeatedly harassed them and robbed all of the valuables they could get their hands on. And not just valuables.
“One day, the man whose house I was a guest in never came home. Some people said he was killed and buried in an open area. Others said that he fell in a hole. Another one said that only God knows what happened to him. The fact is that we have not seen him since,” Zarefa recalls.

I begged them and asked them why we must do such a thing. ‘We will not add anything to your case by converting to Islam,’ we told them. ‘Let us choose our own way and religion.’
From then on it was just the two elderly, single women left. As soon as IS found out about them, they told the women to move to nearby Mosul.
“We told them that we don’t want to leave; that we belong here,” Zarefa says. “That this is our home; we want to stay here. But they made us leave against our will. In the night, they took us from our house, they put bags over our heads and asked us if we had converted to Islam.”
Frightened, Zarefa says she “quickly told them that I had”.
A few hours later, when their hoods were lifted, the two women found themselves in an IS women’s prison full of mostly divorced women. (In the eyes of IS, it’s a crime for a woman to divorce.)
After a few days, Zarefa and her friend managed to return to Qaraqosh as “Muslim” women, but when they arrived, they found three IS soldiers waiting to question them.

“They requested that we openly profess adherence to Islam,” Zarefa says. “I begged them and asked them why we must do such a thing. ‘We will not add anything to your case by converting to Islam,’ we told them. ‘Let us choose our own way and religion.’”
The leader of the group got angry, drew a gun, pointed it at Zarefa’s heart, and threatened to kill her if she didn’t convert to Islam.
“What would you do if you were in our position?” she asks. “He said something, asked us to repeat it, and then asked if we were Muslims. ‘Yes,’ we said. ‘Yes, we are.’ And then they left.”
But that was not enough; the harassment continued.
Zarefa says different IS fighters continually came to their home and demanded money and valuables at gunpoint. When they had taken nearly everything and she was left almost bankrupt, she hid her last savings – the equivalent of 250 dollars – in her bra.
But even that was discovered.
“They forced me to take it off, and then they took my money,” Zarefa recalls, embarrassed by the memory. “Then that man pushed me down on the couch, put his gun on my chest, and threatened me because he was convinced there was more to rob. He shouted at me: ‘We will be cruel to you until you obey.’”
Christians ‘eager’ to return home

Today, 18 January, the Iraqi army has announced that it has recaptured “vast swathes” of Mosul east of the Tigris River, which runs through the city. The army says it’s now preparing to fight to retake the area of Mosul west of the Tigris.
Despite ordeals such as Zarefa’s, Iraqi Christians who fled outlying towns like Qaraqosh (east of Mosul) when IS came in 2014 are “eager” to return home, according to one young Christian in Karamles.
“We are eager to return to our liberated areas,” Valentine told Al-Monitor.
Fr. Thabet Habib, who pastors a church in the town, added: “The time has come for Christians to return to the liberated areas in Nineveh Valley, now that the military operations have ended.” Though he admitted the return will be “gradual”.

World Watch Monitor reported in December that the conflict with IS had left thousands of homes uninhabitable.
“It seems they wanted to make sure nothing of value would remain,” Fr. Habib told World Watch Monitor. “The effect is a mounting feeling of hopelessness among the Christians when they discover the damage. They will really need time to recover from this news, to adjust to the new perspective of living in displacement longer than they might have expected.”
Fr. Habib said as much as 80% of the infrastructure in the Hamdaniya district, where Karamles is located, had been destroyed.
But one resident, Sara Bahnam, told Al-Monitor she is desperate to return home.

“We are sick and tired of being displaced and paying rent in recent years. I will be the first to return to Hamdaniya and to my house, whatever the obstacles,” she said.
Meanwhile, a US bishop has said that the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul told him he is against the construction of a “safe corridor” for religious minorities in Iraq.
Bishop Oscar Cantu told the Catholic News Service that Archbishop Yohanna Moshe told him: “We don’t want to live in a ghetto. That is counterproductive. That makes us a target for our enemies. We have to live in a secure but integrated community where Chaldean Catholics, Syriac Catholics, Sunni Muslims, etc., have relationships with each other.
“We need an integrated reality, rather than a ‘Gaza’ where there’s a wall and someone is guarding people going in and out.”
(Source: World Watch Monitor)

I’m being forgotten because I’m not European, says Indian priest kidnapped by ISIS

by Anto Akkara
posted Friday, 30 Dec 2016

A file with personal details of Fr Tom Uzhunnalil in Bangalore, India (AP)

In a video message Fr Tom Uzhunnalil says his health is deteriorating

The emergence of a video in which Salesian Fr Tom Uzhunnalil, kidnapped by ISIS in Yemen in March, is seen appealing for his release has led to widespread calls for diplomatic efforts to end his captivity.

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, India’s minister of state for parliamentary affairs, reiterated to Cardinal George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly, major archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, that the government is “doing everything possible” during a meeting at Church headquarters in Cochin.

The minister’s visit came a day after a five-minute video of a visibly weak Fr Uzhunnalil making an emotional appeal for his release. The Salesian hails from India’s Kerala state.

In the video, Fr Uzhunnalil appeared to blame both the Indian government and Church officials for failing to secure his release. He claimed his captors had made several contacts with the Indian government and yet “I am very sad that nothing has been done seriously in my regard.”

“If I were a European priest, I would have been taken more seriously. I am from India. I am perhaps not considered as of much value … Dear Pope Francis, dear Holy Father, as a father please take care of my life. I am very much depressed. My health is deteriorating,” the priest is seen saying.

Archbishop Maria Soosa Pakiam of Trivandrum, president of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council, demanded Fr Uzhunnalil’s release “without further delay”.

“Not withstanding technicalities involved, the delay is seen by the common people as a lapse on the part of those concerned,” he said.

Meanwhile, Fr Paul Thelakkat, who ministers in Kerala, called the video of “Fr Tom’s appeal for his life very painful and distressing,” in an interview with Catholic News Service.

“The video clearly indicates that the terrorists are putting more pressure on India and the Church to succumb to their demands, whatever they may be,” Fr Thelakkat said.

Fr George Njarakunnel, vicar of Ramapuram parish in the Palai diocese, said parishioners began praying at the priest’s residence after the video became public

Chinese leader tells Catholics: follow socialism, not the Vatican

by Associated Press  osted  Friday, 30 Dec 2016 Yu Zhengsheng, a member of China's Politburo Standing Committee (AP)

Yu Zhengsheng said Catholics should 'adhere to the Sinicisation path of the religion'
One of China’s top leaders has told Chinese Catholics that they need to promote socialism and patriotism through religion and operate “independently” of non-Chinese authorities.
Yu Zhengsheng’s speech came at the end of a meeting of China’s official Catholic church that was being closely watched by the Holy See. Yu is one of seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top decision-making body. His speech could be a measure of how much Beijing is willing to yield in potential dialogue with the Holy See.
Yu called on Catholics to take decisions independently from Rome, saying: “The Church should adhere to the principles of self-administration, run religious affairs independently and guide believers to adhere to the Sinicisation path of the religion.”
State media reported that Yu called on Catholic churches to adhere to “socialism with Chinese characteristics” – a term that describes China’s model of development, which for decades has favoured economic liberalisation but not political reform. China’s ruling Communist Party is officially atheistic. Yu also said Chinese Catholics should adhere “to the correct direction of development.”
China and the Vatican have long clashed over whether the party-controlled Chinese church could operate outside the Pope’s authority. Beijing severed relations with the Holy See in 1951, shortly after the Communist Party took power, and officially allows worship only in state-sanctioned churches. Many of China’s estimated 12 million Catholics are thought to worship in underground congregations.
Starting under Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican has sought to unite Chinese Catholics under the Holy See. Pope Francis has said that both sides had resumed meetings of working groups over the naming of bishops, an issue central to the dispute between both sides.
But just last week, the Vatican said it was saddened that the ordination of two new Chinese bishops was marred by the presence of a bishop ordained without the Pope’s consent. It said it would watch this week’s conference with hope for new confidence in the Vatican-China dialogue.
Wang Zuo’an, China’s head of religious affairs, said earlier this week he hoped the Vatican would be flexible and pragmatic, and take concrete steps to improve relations, state media reported. No details were given of what Beijing expects.
State media also reported that Bishop Ma Yinglin was re-elected president of one of the groups at the conference, the Bishops Conference of Catholic Church of China. Ma was excommunicated in 2006 by the Vatican after being named by the Chinese church as a bishop in southwestern Yunnan province.
The Vatican-affiliated AsiaNews service, which closely covers the underground church in China, quoted on Thursday one priest from northern China calling the meeting “a staged theatrical representation.”
The priest, identified only as “Fr Peter”, said: “Everything was very well planned: the assignment of roles, their scripts, the well-chosen audience, who raised their hands to vote and approve content, the media coverage.

Venezuelan Fr Arturo Sosa Abascal is named new leader of the Jesuits

by Staff Reporter
posted  Friday, 14 Oct 2016
The new superior general greets the previous superior general, Fr Adolfo Nicolás, after his election (CNS)

He becomes the 30th successor of St Ignatius of Loyola
Fr Arturo Sosa Abascal has been voted the next superior general of the Society of Jesus.
The Venezuelan becomes the 30th successor of Jesuit founder St Ignatius of Loyola and leader of the Catholic Church’s largest religious order.
He is the Jesuits’ first non-European leader and also the first superior general to be elected under a Jesuit pope.
He succeeds Fr Adolfo Nicolás, a Spanish priest who formally resigned this month aged 80.
The election took place in Rome today.
Fr Sosa was born in Caracas on November 12, 1948. He is the Delegate of the General for the International Houses and Works of the Society of Jesus in Rome.
He has a Political Science doctorate from the Universidad Central de Venezuela. He speaks Spanish, Italian and English.

Polish bishops oppose Catholic group's support of gay rights campaign

Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, in a 2014 file photo (CNS/Kacper Pempel, Reuters)
 By Jonathan Luxmoore  |  Sep. 22, 2016
13

WARSAW, POLAND When a group of Polish Catholics declared support for a gay rights campaign, their involvement was quickly condemned by the country's bishops conference. Having raised the issue in the church, however, the group is determined to press on and ensure the atmosphere of understanding engendered by Pope Francis finds a louder echo in Poland.
"The bishops' reaction is only a first step -- what matters is that they've now felt it necessary to take up a position on LGBT issues," explained Dominika Kozlowska, editor of the Catholic monthly Znak (The Sign). "The Catholics who've engaged in this campaign will also continue to talk about these issues in publications and discussions. Though the bishops have accused us of infringing Gospel injunctions, they've also said things in the process which haven't been said in the church here before."

The campaign, "Let's exchange a sign of peace," was launched in early September with nationwide billboards depicting clasped hands -- one with a rainbow bracelet and the other with a Catholic rosary.

Organizers include Poland's Campaign Against Homophobia and a Christian group, Faith and Rainbow, which ran a network of "LGBT pilgrim havens" during the church's summer World Youth Day in Krakow.

They've outlined plans for public meetings around the country with LGBT activists and prominent Catholics, and vowed to remind Poland's mostly Catholic population of what the church officially teaches -- that Christian values "include the necessity of respect, openness and willing dialogue with all people, including homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals."

Several Catholic magazines and newspapers pitched in with expressions of support on the campaign's website, znakpokoju.com, including Wiez (The Link) in Warsaw, and Znak and Tygodnik Powszechny (Universal Weekly) in Krakow.

Polish church leaders reacted differently, however.

In a Sept. 8 statement published in the Polish Catholic information agency, KAI, Krakow's archbishop, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, accused the campaign's Catholic backers of selectively quoting the pope and "falsifying the church's unchangeable teaching," by promoting "not just respect for homosexual people, but a view of homosexual acts and same-sex unions as something morally good."

From Warsaw, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz also hit out at the campaign's supporters in a Sept. 10 statement with KAI. Encouraging "respect and goodwill for homosexuals" was fine by Catholic teaching, Nycz said. But some Catholics were "criticizing church teaching on how to evaluate homosexuality," and even "suggesting a need to modify or change it."

On Sept. 14, the whole Bishops' Conference presidium pitched in, attacking Wiez, Znak and Tygodnik Powszechny by name, and rejecting claims that the Polish church was homophobic. Although LGBT groups often accused the church of violating their dignity, the bishops said, the church was in reality "the only institution which, for two thousand years, has untiringly proclaimed the dignity of all without exception."

"But if extending hands to others means accepting the person, it never means approving their sin," the communique continued. "Members of a community gathered in the liturgy have a permanent duty to be converted, and meet Gospel demands by turning away from their sinful fancies. We fear this action, extracting the extended hand gesture from its liturgical context, assumes a meaning incompatible with the teaching of Christ and the church."

Gay and lesbian groups have frequently complained of discrimination in Poland, where the predominant Catholic church opposed clauses in a 1997 constitution barring discrimination on grounds of ''sexual orientation" and has rejected repeated requests for a pastoral service for homosexuals.

In 2010, the European Union criticized church-owned schools and colleges for refusing to employ declared homosexual staffers, while in January 2013, the church thanked Polish members of parliament for voting down a bill to allow same-sex civil partnerships.

In December 2013, the bishops attacked the "ideology of gender" in a pastoral letter, warning it was "deeply destructive" to "all social life" and calling on Poles to resist it. A year later, church leaders attacked state broadcasting directors for allowing TV channels to run a half-minute program defending gays and lesbians.
 

And in October 2015, the Polish church's vigorous stance was forcefully presented at Rome's Synod of Bishops, when its chief representative, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan, condemned "feelings of false compassion" and rejected any rethink on homosexuality.

Surveys suggests more and more Polish Catholics are questioning their church's teachings on issues like this, while the widening gap between church teaching and public opinion appears to be exacerbating feelings of rejection and alienation.

In one recent questionnaire on Poland's Queer.pl website, only 21 percent of gays and lesbians claimed to be "faithful and practicing" Christians, less than a third of the national average, while 47 percent said they were no longer Catholics and further 30 percent described themselves as "believers who avoid the Catholic church."

Hopes have been aroused in Poland, not surprisingly, by the pope's conciliatory statements on homosexuality, including his March 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and his statement on a June flight from Armenia that the church "must say it's sorry to the gay person it has offended."

In July, before Francis arrived in Krakow for World Youth Day, a group of parents with LGBT children wrote to the pontiff, begging him to speak out against the "hatred" directed at their families. Given the Polish church's strong influence on public opinion, they asked, why were priests not defending LGBT citizens in their homilies, and speaking out against "attacks of verbal and physical violence."

"We are moved by fear about the fate and future of our children -- a fear justified by the homophobia which is very widespread in our society," the group told the pope. "LGBT people are excluded from the church, although many believe in God and wish to practice and nurture their faith. Holy Masses and meditations for homosexuals are conducted secretly and in hiding, and few priests have any feeling for them. ... Why is the church watching with such indifference?"

Kozlowska, the Catholic editor, thinks the pope's "good example" could hold the key. Social and cultural attitudes are changing in Poland, as in other countries, she says, with more citizens now living in "irregular situations."

Having refused to recognize homosexuality as a genuine orientation, and seen it only as something sinful, Poland's Catholic bishops now have to consider the subject more carefully.

"The institutional church must start offering adequate pastoral support for this part of our society, rather than just treating these issues ideologically," the Znak editor told NCR. "I think Francis is offering a way out of the deadlock, by proposing new ways of thinking, acting and speaking, and giving a new quality to church reflections. This is something quite new for Poland, and conservatives and progressives here should all learn from it."

Yet the battle looks set to continue, as the pope's teachings are struggled over and rival Catholic groups vie other to influence the church's agenda.

When the Polish bishops' communique was published Sept. 15, Kozlowska and her Catholic editor colleagues from other publications defended their move in a statement of their own and welcomed the bishops' affirmation "with Pope Francis, that every person must be respected, whatever their sexual orientation."

They had acted "in full accord with the Magisterium," they insisted, in "engaging in church activity to ensure appropriate pastoral care for LGBT people" -- and they had no intention of "asserting political, legal or doctrinal demands."

"Our involvement as media patrons of this campaign was aimed solely at stressing those elements of church teaching which are little known and disseminated in Poland," the Catholic editors wrote. "Polish Catholics have now received a clear call from their pastors to treat homosexual brothers and sisters with dignity and respect. If our involvement in this campaign was improperly understood, perhaps this was a felix culpa, or fortunate mistake."

Yet in their statement, the bishops conference warned that homosexual acts must continue to be viewed as "objective moral evils," and cautioned Catholics not to play any part in a campaign whose postulates "clearly depart from the Gospel" and could "damage society and individuals."

Nycz has said he's planning to talk with the editors to clarify his "justified doubts," while KAI has accused them of helping "promote homosexual attitudes."

Some conservative church groups are circulating a petition, demanding that Wiez, Znak and Tygodnik Powszechny, all founded in the post-War communist years, are stripped of their "Catholic" titles.

Despite the furor, Kozlowska is hopeful.

Although LGBT issues have long been talked about by Poland's media, she says, the church itself has rarely touched the subject. And when it has done, it's invariably been in "very strong language," insisting family life and all social relations must be governed by natural law.

Even while condemning the latest campaign, the bishops will have raised LGBT issues to a new level and been forced to confront them more credibly and effectively.

"No one us wants to start an open struggle with the bishops, interfere with their teaching or make a public declaration of doctrinal opposition," she told NCR. "But we hope the bishops' communique and our subsequent statement won't be the last act in this area. The voice of lay Catholics is weak in Poland and the habits of submission are strong. But things are clearly evolving, so we should be optimistic."

[Jonathan Luxmoore's two-volume study of communist-era martyrs, The God of the Gulag, is published by Gracewing in the UK.]
 

Catholicism’s incredible growth story

by Philip Jenkins
posted  Thursday, 8 Sep 2016
There are around 1.2 billion Catholics in the world today; by 2050 it may be 1.6 billion (CNS)

Critics keep announcing the Church's imminent demise. If only they realised that numbers have doubled since 1970 – and are still rising
In many parts of the world, it’s difficult to feel optimistic about the future of the Catholic Church. Some years ago, the American Physical Society heard an alarming paper that predicted the countries in the world that would have no religion whatever by 2100, and high on the list were such former Catholic heartlands as Austria and Ireland – Ireland! For over a decade now, we have heard so many appalling stories of sexual abuse and scandal that we might even be tempted to ask if the Church can really survive.
It is strange then to realise that this Church – which is already, by far, the largest religious institution on the planet – is in fact enjoying global growth on an unprecedented scale. In 1950, the world’s Catholic population was 437 million, a figure that grew to 650 million by 1970, and to around 1.2 billion today. Put another way, Catholic numbers have doubled since 1970, and that change has occurred during all the recent controversies and crises within the Church, all the debates following Vatican II and all the claims about the rise of secularism.
Nor does the rate of growth show any sign of diminishing. By 2050, a conservative estimate suggests there should be at least 1.6 billion Catholics.
I spoke about global growth, and that “global” element demands emphasis. The Church has an excellent claim to have invented globalisation, and that goes far towards explaining just why its numbers are actually booming. Throughout history there had been so many so-called “world empires” which in reality were mainly confined to Eurasia. Only in the 16th century did the Spanish and Portuguese empires truly span the globe. For me, true globalisation began in 1578, when the Catholic Church established its diocese at Manila, in the Philippines – as a suffragan see of Mexico City, on the other side of the immense Pacific Ocean.
Those once mighty empires are long departed, but their ghosts remain in the thriving Catholic populations of Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines, which today constitute the Church’s three largest population centres. Mexico’s overall population has swelled from 50 million in 1970 to 121 million today, so of course there are lots more Catholics in that country. The Philippines, meanwhile, today claims 80 million Catholics, a number that will likely increase to well over 100 million by 2050. Last year, there were more Catholic baptisms in that country than in France, Spain, Italy and Poland combined.
A cynical observer might object that Church growth is solely the result of surging populations in particular regions where Catholicism happens to be the default religion. Certainly, as always, demographics plays its part in religious change, but this is by no means the whole story, and the clearest proof of this is found in Africa. Back in 1900, Africa had perhaps 10 million Christians of all denominations, constituting some 10 per cent of the whole population. Today, there are half a billion African Christians, accounting for half the continental population, and that number should exceed a billion by the 2040s.
This phenomenal growth – which is, incidentally, by far the largest quantitative change that has ever occurred in any religion, anywhere – is in part the result of the continent’s overall population growth.
In 1900, there were three Europeans for every African. By 2050, there will be three Africans for every European. But this expansion is also, clearly, the result of mass conversions. During the 20th century, some 40 per cent of Africa’s people shifted their allegiance from older primal faiths to Christianity.
Although Catholics do not represent the whole of this African story, they are a very significant part of it. In 1900, the whole of Africa had just a couple of million Catholics, but that number grew to 130 million by the end of the century, and today it approaches 200 million. If current trends continue, as they show every sign of doing, then by the 2040s there will be some 460 million African Catholics. Incredibly, that number would be greater than the total world population of Catholics as it stood in 1950.
Already by about 2030, we will cross a historic milestone when the number of Catholics in Africa will exceed the number for Europe. A few years after that, Africa will overtake Latin America to claim the title of the most Catholic continent. Within just a generation from now, a list of the 10 nations with the largest Catholic populations will include several names where Catholicism was virtually new in 1900: African lands such as Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Now, there are some problems with these numbers. I have been citing official Church figures, but those counts of the faithful are actually quite flawed. If you look at survey evidence of religious belief, you’ll find a major disparity between the number of people claiming to be Catholic versus the totals reported by Church authorities. But that gap is not what we might intuitively suspect. Far from optimistically over-counting the faithful, the African Church is systematically under-counting, and by a whopping 20 per cent. They might be too busy baptising people to keep very good records.
Nor is this just an African story. Just since 1980, the total number of African Catholics grew by 238 per cent, while the equivalent rate in Asia was 115 per cent, and 56 per cent in the Americas.
Of course, if you want to see Catholic growth in action, you don’t have to make the effort to travel to Africa or Asia, as booming Catholic Africa and Asia are coming to you. In recent decades, many millions of migrants from the global South have travelled northwards, and a great many of those are Catholic. We see plenty of evidence of this in British churches, and especially in the country’s old and revived pilgrimage sites, but similar patterns can be seen across Europe. Look at the number of parishes in historically Catholic Europe – in Ireland or France, say – which are now graced by priests from Nigeria or Vietnam.
This reality was brought home to me when I visited Denmark, which is historically one of the continent’s least Catholic nations. But go to a small city like Aarhus and watch the floods of people surrounding the small Catholic church, where Masses are offered in languages as diverse as Vietnamese, English, Chaldean and Tagalog (the last being the main tongue of the Philippines). The global Church comes home; or perhaps we should say, the empires strike back.
When we consider those African statistics alone, any suggestion of the Catholic Church “dying” or even stagnating is so wildly inaccurate as to be comical. Strangely, though, this is not the first time that at least some observers have felt that prospects for the Church were so dismal. Back in the 1890s, Mark Twain sagely observed that: “In this world we have seen the Roman Catholic power dying … for many centuries. Many a time we have gotten all ready for the funeral and found it postponed again, on account of the weather or something … Apparently one of the most uncertain things in the world is the funeral of a religion.”
See you at the graveside?

Russian government introduces draconian Soviet era restrictions on religious freedom – churches all over Russia turn to prayer and fasting

Russia, June 30, 2016: Christians in Russia called for prayer and fasting as the country looks set to introduce draconian new restrictions on freedom of religion similar to those that existed in the Communist era.
Last Friday two members of the Russian Duma (parliament) introduced a series of amendments to anti-terrorist legislation that would require individuals to gain prior state authorisation before even discussing their faith with someone else. The Duma adopted the amendments and on despite major protests by churches on Wednesday the bill was passed by the Council of the Russian Federation. It now goes to Russian President Vladimir Putin who has until July 20th to decide whether the bill will become law
The new law will require any sharing of the Christian faith – even a casual conversation – to have prior authorisation from the state. This includes something as basic as an emailed invitation for a friend to attend church. Even in a private home, worship and prayer will only be allowed if there are no unbelievers present. Churches will also be held accountable for the activities of their members. So if, for example, a church member mentions their faith in conversation with a work colleague, not only the church member but also the church itself could be punished, with individuals facing fines of up to 50,000 roubles (£580; USD770; €700). There are also restrictions on the extent to which churches can have contact with foreigners; for example, any non-Russian citizen attending a church service would be required to have a work visa or face a fine and expulsion from Russia.
The bill appears to be using the excuse of anti-terrorist legislation to clamp down on any churches other than the Russian Orthodox, support for which is closely tied to Russian nationalism. President Putin has in recent years increasingly emphasised his own membership of the Russian Orthodox Church as a means of bolstering popular support for himself. However, even some senior members of the Russian Orthodox Church have voiced concerns about the bill.
If passed, the extent that this law is implemented will depend on local authorities. However, the bill is vaguely worded and, with a heavily politicised judiciary, could lead to a situation similar to that faced by Christians in the Communist era.
Barnabas Fund colleagues in Russia have expressed serious concerns about the proposed measures. Leaders of Russia’s Baptist Union called a national day of prayer and fasting yesterday (Wednesday 29 June) as the Council of the Russian Federation discussed the bill. Meanwhile, the Advisory Council of Heads of Protestant Churches of Russia has urgently appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the legislation. Now in scenes reminiscent of the book of Esther (4:1-17) churches all over Russia are praying and fasting for deliverance from this edict.

More tribal people choosing Christianity in India: report
But some question the official data, fearing it can be used for divisive politicking More tribal people choosing Christianity in India: report
Indian Lambadi tribal women dance during a performance in Hyderabad on the eve of International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on Aug. 8. Official figures say that from 2001 to 2011 there has been a 63 percent growth in the number of tribal people in India who identify as Christians. (Photo by AFP)

ucanews.com reporter, New Delhi
India April 20, 2016

A grwing trend in India shows tribal people embracing either Christianity or Islam over Hinduism, said the latest government statistics. However some see divisive political fodder in the data.
Government figures released in mid-April said the number of Christian tribal people has increased from 6.3 million in 2001 to 10.03 million in 2011, recording a 63 percent growth.
The number of tribal people who profess Islam has grown 51 percent from 1.2 million to 1.8 million during the period when the national census was last conducted.
While the number of tribal people following the Hindu faith is much larger, their percentage growth has been comparatively less at 39 percent. The 60 million Hindu tribal people in 2001 grew to 84 million in 2011.

In contrast, total tribal population growth was only 23 percent from 84 million to 104 million for the period. The number of tribal people who do not belong to any religion or follow animism decreased from 16.4 million to 7.8 million, indicating increased religious conversions.
"There is nothing wrong" if the data is interpreted to show tribal people have been converting to Christianity, said Father Ranjit Tigga, head of the department of tribal studies at New Delhi's Indian Social Institute.

He said the Indian constitution gives all citizens the freedom to profess and propagate a religion of their choice.
"If the data is correct, it is good news" for the tribal-based church in the north and northeastern parts of India, said Father Tigga.
Bishop Vincent Barwa of Simdega said that if the data is to be believed, then it is positive.
"It ill give us a morale boost to work hard for evangelization and also it gives us the satisfaction that we are heading in the right direction," said Bishop Barwa who is the convener of the national bishops' office for tribal affairs.

Data politics

Father Tigga said that there are elections going on in many states and releasing the census data now can also be viewed as polarizing.
"Political parties have their own agenda. Some political parties are trying to divide people in the name of caste and creed," the priest said without naming any particular party or group.
Religious conversion has been a sensitive issue in Indian politics for several decades but assumed special significance after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power two years ago. The party opposes religious conversion saying it destabilizes the nation and its dominant Hindu culture.

Muslim leader Arif Khan said he does not believe the government statistics, which he says has a political agenda behind it.
It is part of the political strategy of the BJP and its affiliated groups, said Khan.
These Hindu groups are "there to divide people in the name of religion," he said.
Khan added that all Indians should be on guard to protect the secular nature of their country "otherwise religious minorities will become second class citizens."

Warsaw gets new church after 225 years of waiting

WARSAW: Worshippers in the capital of Catholic Poland finally celebrated the consecration of the city's highest church on Friday -- after a mere 225 years of waiting. The cornerstone of the enormous Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw was laid in 1792 but its halting progress since has mirrored turbulent Polish history. Just a few days after construction started, Russian troops invaded Poland and Polish independence was soon a distant memory.

The Temple is meant to be a national and religious symbol for Poland. The Divine Providence complex comprises a Church of Divine Providence, a Museum to Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski.  It is worth seeing the basements of the temple with the Pantheon of Great Poles. Priest Jan Twardowski, President Ryszard Kaczorowski and Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski are buried there. There are also relics of Blessed John Paul II and Jerzy Popieluszko. In spite of the fact that the construction work continues in the upper part of the temple, masses are held inside.

The project was enthusiastically resurrected after World War I but Hitler's invading army put a stop to it in 1939. Once again, Catholic Church bosses tried to revamp the project after Hitler's defeat but this time it was blocked by the Communist authorities. Only when the Berlin Wall fell could Poland's religious authorities seek to celebrate their new-found freedom by starting again.

The perseverance paid off on Friday with an inaugural Mass attended by Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and President Andrzej Duda. Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki cited Poland's beloved former pope John Paul II in calling for a "responsible" use of their freedom and warning against the "arrogance of power."

The most recent building work began in 2003 and was mainly financed by some 50 million euros ($54 million) in private donations from around 100,000 people. However, even after 225 years, the work is not yet over with some painting unfinished and stained-glass windows not yet fixed. Seven million euros more are required in donations to complete the job.

The building is not universally popular with its enormous rotunda earning it the unwelcome nickname of the "giant lemon juicer". The final version is packed with modern touches such as ultra-fine acoustics in the main hall, which will also be used for concerts.

The lighting can also be changed to reflect different periods of the liturgical calendar. On Friday, the church was lit up in the national colours of red and white, as Poland celebrates the 98th anniversary of its independence.

75 metre high, 67 metre diameter reinforced concrete building has a 4,500 seat capacity and is the largest ecclesiastical structure built in Poland in several centuries.
Address: 02-972 Warszawa, ul. Ks. Prymasa A. Hlonda 1

Iraqi Christians determined to return to their homes, says archbishop
Internally displaced Christian women pray during Mass at the St Joseph Cathedral in Ankawa, northern Iraq (AP)
by Murcadha O'Flaherty
posted  Wednesday, 2 Nov 2016

Archbishop Bashar Warda said 100,000 people have begun preparations to return to ancient towns and villages in the Nineveh Plain
Displaced Iraqi Christians are determined to return to their homes in areas liberated from ISIS, according to the bishop who has led the relief effort during their period of exile.
Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil described how some of the 100,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kurdish northern Iraq had already begun preparations to return to the ancient towns and villages in the Nineveh Plain.
However, the archbishop underlined the difficulty of Christians returning to nearby Mosul which is still under ISIS control, but he added that many of the faithful originally from the city still held out the hope of returning one day.
In interviews with Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Warda said: “People have not yet returned [to Nineveh] because of the operation to secure Mosul and the [subsequent] reconstruction plans. There is definitely a will to return after it’s secure. People have started [their] preparations.”
He added: “People have been holding prayers and celebrations. Some priests went to liberated villages – with soldiers. They [villagers and priests] sang hymns to the victorious Cross.”
But the archbishop recognised the many obstacles to be overcome before the displaced people in Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, and Dohuk and elsewhere can realistically return to their homes in Nineveh up to 40 miles away

Italian priest blames recent spate of earthquakes on gay civil unions

Father Giovanni Cavalcoli calls seismic shocks 'divine punishment'
An Italian priest has said the recent earthquakes that have shaken the country, killing hundreds and leaving tens of thousands homeless, were "divine punishment" for gay civil unions.
Father Giovanni Cavalcoli, a theologian known for his hardline views, made the comments on October 30, the day central Italy was struck by a 6.6-magnitude quake - the most powerful to hit the country in 36 years - according to Italian media.
Cavalcoli said on Radio Maria that the seismic shocks were "divine punishment" for "the offence to the family and the dignity of marriage, in particular through civil unions".
Legislation allowing gay civil unions in Italy only took effect last month, making it the last country in Western Europe to legally recognise same-sex relationships.

The radio station distanced itself from the priest’s views and late on Friday the Vatican issued a stinging rebuke, saying the idea of a vengeful God was "a pagan vision" dating from "the pre-Christian era".
Archbishop Angelo Becciu, number two in the Vatican's powerful Secretariat of State, said Cavalcoli's comments were "offensive to believers and disgraceful for non-believers", in remarks reported by Italian media.
Becciu asked for forgiveness from victims of the earthquake and reminded them they had the "solidarity and support" of Pope Francis.
But Cavalcoli has refused to back down, insisting to another radio station that earthquakes are indeed caused by "the sins of man" and telling the Vatican to "read their catechism".
The priest is far from being the first 21st Century Christian leader to think homosexuality somehow causes natural disasters.
In 2012, during that year’s presidential election, the right-wing American chaplain John McTernan linked Hurricane Sandy to gay marriage, Barack Obama’s backing of it, and his Republican rival Mitt Romney being – he claimed - “a big-time homosexual supporter.”
“A pro-homosexual Mormon along with a pro-abortion/homosexual, Muslim Brotherhood promoter, Hard Left Fascist are running for president. And there is no cry of repentance from God’s people! I see this storm as a warning from the LORD to call His church to repentance.”“This monster storm aimed at America is not a coincidence,” wrote the founder of Defend and Proclaim the Faith ministries.  “What a sign from the holy God of Israel that American politics is an abomination to Him.
In 2015 the American Christian lobbyist Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council was quoted as saying he agreed that Hurricane Joaquin, which devastated parts of the Bahamas last year, was a sign of God’s wrath. “God is trying to end us a message,” Mr Perkins was quoted as saying.
In 2016 a flood destroyed Mr Perkins’ Louisiana home.  He told the Family Research Council’s radio station, without any apparent awareness of the potential irony: “This is a flood, I would have to say, of near Biblical proportions.”

In city liberated from Islamic State, Iraqi bishop celebrates first Mass in over two years

October 31, 2016
Syrian Catholic Archbishop Youhanna Petros Mouche of Mosul presided at a Mass in Qaragosh, Iraq, on October 30—the first time that Mass had been celebrated in the city sine the Islamic State seized the region two years ago.

As an international force nears Mosul, Qaragosh was liberated from the Islamic State last week, and returning Christians found the cathedral of the Immaculate Conception largely intact—although pews had been overturned, graffiti scrawled across the walls, and fires damaged the interior. The archbishop told the AsiaNews service that the cathedral was a vital symbol of the people of Qaragosh. “If we had not found it as it is now—if it had really been destroyed—the Qaragosh people would not want to return,” he said.

CDF issues instruction on cremation, affirms Church’s strong preference for burial

October 25, 2016
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has released Ad resurgendum cum Christo [To Rise with Christ], an instruction on the burial of the deceased and the conservation of the ashes in the case of cremation.
The instruction, approved by Pope Francis on March 18 and dated August 15, was made public on October 25. Its twofold purpose is to emphasize “the doctrinal and pastoral reasons for the preference of the burial of the remains of the faithful and to set out norms pertaining to the conservation of ashes in the case of cremation.”
Since the Church first permitted cremation in 1963, “the practice of cremation has notably increased in many countries, but simultaneously new ideas contrary to the Church’s faith have also become widespread,” the Congregation noted.

“Following the most ancient Christian tradition, the Church insistently recommends that the bodies of the deceased be buried in cemeteries or other sacred places,” the Congregation stated. “In memory of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord, the mystery that illumines the Christian meaning of death, burial is above all the most fitting way to express faith and hope in the resurrection of the body.”

The Congregation continued:

By burying the bodies of the faithful, the Church confirms her faith in the resurrection of the body, and intends to show the great dignity of the human body as an integral part of the human person whose body forms part of their identity. She cannot, therefore, condone attitudes or permit rites that involve erroneous ideas about death, such as considering death as the definitive annihilation of the person, or the moment of fusion with Mother Nature or the universe, or as a stage in the cycle of regeneration, or as the definitive liberation from the “prison” of the body …
The burial of the faithful departed in cemeteries or other sacred places encourages family members and the whole Christian community to pray for and remember the dead, while at the same time fostering the veneration of martyrs and saints.

• “In circumstances when cremation is chosen because of sanitary, economic or social considerations, this choice must never violate the explicitly-stated or the reasonably inferable wishes of the deceased faithful.”
• “The Church continues to prefer the practice of burying the bodies of the deceased, because this shows a greater esteem towards the deceased. Nevertheless, cremation is not prohibited, unless it was chosen for reasons contrary to Christian doctrine.”
• “When, for legitimate motives, cremation of the body has been chosen, the ashes of the faithful must be laid to rest in a sacred place, that is, in a cemetery or, in certain cases, in a church or an area, which has been set aside for this purpose, and so dedicated by the competent ecclesial authority.”
• “The conservation of the ashes of the departed in a domestic residence is not permitted” except in “grave and exceptional cases dependent on cultural conditions of a localized nature” with permission of the bishop. “Nonetheless, the ashes may not be divided among various family members and due respect must be maintained regarding the circumstances of such a conservation.”
• “In order that every appearance of pantheism, naturalism or nihilism be avoided, it is not permitted to scatter the ashes of the faithful departed in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewelry or other objects.”

Pope Says Nuns Killed in Yemen Are Victims of ‘the Globalization of Indifference’
Yemeni pro-government fighters guard outside a Missionaries of Charity elderly home March 4 after unidentified gunmen targeted the home in Aden, Yemen. Four Missionaries of Charity and 10 to 12 other people were killed in the attack. (CNS photo/EPA)

Gerard O'Connell | Mar 6 2016 - 10:02am

On Sunday Pope Francis expressed his closeness to the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, at the killing of four of their sisters in Aden, the port city of Yemen, on March 4. Departing from his prepared text, he hailed these sisters who were caring for the elderly in this war stricken land as “the martyrs of our day” and said, “they were killed by their attackers, but also by the globalization of indifference.

His words about "the globalization of indifference" are understood to refer not only to the general indifference to the attacks on Christians in this region but also to the great indifference of the international community to the year-long civil war in this impoverished country, which has brought it to the brink of catastrophe. The previous day he expressed the hope that "this pointless slaughter will awaken consciences, lead to a change of heart and inspire all parties to lay down their arms and take up the path of dialogue."

One of martyred sisters, Sister Anselm, was from India; the other three were from Africa: Sisters Margherite and Reginette from Rwanda and Sister Judith from Kenya.  “Their names do not appear on the front page of the newspapers, but they gave their blood for the church,” Francis stated.

“I pray for them and for the other persons killed in the attack, and for their family members,” he added. He prayed that Mother Teresa—whom he will declare a saint in September—“may accompany into paradise these here daughters, martyrs of charity, and intercede for peace and the sacred respect of human life.”

The Vatican said he was “shocked and profoundly saddened” by the murder of four Missionaries of Charity and 12 other people at a retirement home for the elderly (80 of whom lived there) run by the sisters in Aden, last Friday morning. Gunmen entered the building where they lived and went room-to-room, handcuffing victims before shooting them in the head, killing at least 16 people. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that the other victims included four local nurses, four security guards and three cleaning staff.

On Saturday, March 5, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sent a message on the pope’s behalf, saying the Holy Father “sends the assurance of his prayers for the dead and his spiritual closeness to their families and to all affected from this act of senseless and diabolical violence.”
He said the pope “prays that this pointless slaughter will awaken consciences, lead to a change of heart, and inspire all parties to lay down their arms and take up the path of dialogue.”

He issued a strong appeal from Pope Francis for an end to the ongoing violence in Yemen, saying that “in the name of God, he calls upon all parties in the present conflict to renounce violence, and to renew their commitment to the people of Yemen, particularly those most in need, whom the Sisters and their helpers sought to serve.”
He concluded by saying the pope “invokes God’s blessing upon everyone suffering from this violence, and in a special ways he extends to the Missionaries of Charity his prayerful sympathy and solidarity.”

The killing of these four sisters brings to a total of seven the number of Missionaries of Charity who have died as martyrs in this land, on the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, over the past two decades. In 1998, three other sisters—Zelia and Aletta (India) and Michael (the Philippines)—were killed at Hodeida, another city in this war-torn land where Catholics count for a mere 3,000 faithful (migrant workers) in a population of some 25 million people. In 1973, Mother Teresa was invited to open a mission in the country by the then government of North Yemen. She agreed but asked that they could also have priests. Her request was granted and the Salesian order provided the priests, and five of them are living in the country today.

One of the priests, the only Catholic priest in Aden, Fr. Thomas Uzhunnali, from Kerala, India, was living with the sisters in this building at the time of the attack, since his parish residence was destroyed last September. He was praying in the chapel of the retirement home when the killers arrived, and was taken away by them, according to the mother superior of the community of Missionaries of Charity in Aden who, press reports say, managed to hide and so avoided being killed in the attack. It is not known what happened to him.

The Holy See and the Republic of the Yemen, an Islamic state, established diplomatic relations in October 1998, and it was hoped then that this would guarantee some protection to the tiny Christian community there and make it possible for them to carry out their mission, such as that done by the Missionaries of Charity in caring for the elderly and the disabled. In the civil war, however, even the poorest and those who serve them have little protection.

In 2011 Yemen experienced the Arab Spring protests, along with Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Libya and Syria. Worried that these could spill out of control or even beyond its borders, the BBC reports that Yemen's Gulf Arab neighbors brokered a deal that saw longstanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh deposed and replaced by President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

Mr. Saleh remained in the country, however, and in 2014, threw his support behind a rebellion by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, enabling them to march almost unopposed into the capital, Sanaa. By January 2015, the U.N.-recognized President Hadi had lost power and fled into exile in Saudi Arabia. By March 2015, the Shiite rebels had taken over the whole of western Yemen, where the bulk of the population is concentrated.

According to the BBC, the Saudis and their Gulf Arab allies saw this as an Iranian takeover, and fearing that Iran was about to seize control of the port city of Aden and the strategic entrance to the Red Sea, through which thousands of ships pass each year, they formed a nine-nation coalition. In March 2015, the Saudis began a massive campaign of airstrikes, targeting both the rebels and the units loyal to Mr. Saleh, but by December 2015 the Shiite Houthis still remained firmly embedded in the capital and much of the north.

Today, the Shiite Houthi rebels control the northern region but are being hit hard by Saudi-led airstrikes. The Saudi-backed internationally-recognized government controls the southern region, but there is great instability here too. Yemen effectively has two capitals—Sanaa and Aden—as the country continues to be trapped in a war that neither side seems to be winning. Aden descended into lawlessness after the Saudi-led coalition recaptured this key city from the Shiite rebels last summer, but both Al Qaida and the Islamic State are now active there.

At the end of last year, the BBC reported that Yemen’s basic infrastructure was shattered, its economy was grinding to a halt, and at least 80 percent of the population was dependent on food aid. Peace talks opened in Switzerland last December but so far have not managed to end this civil conflict in which Saudi Arabia and Iran are deeply engaged.

Already the poorest country in the Arab world, with ever-decreasing oil and water reserves, Yemen is now facing catastrophe according to the United Nations: 21.2 million people need some form of humanitarian assistance, around 6,000 people have been killed, and 2.4 million people have been displaced from their homes. Human rights organizations say both sides are responsible for atrocities in this impoverished but strategically important land where the tussle for power has serious implications for the region and the security of the West. The U.N. Security Council needs to intervene, but that is not happening. The globalization of indifference still reigns supreme, and people die.

The drama of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria

The fruit of the blood of the martyrs: the more Christians Boko Haram kills more people are baptized
Google's translation from Spanish

Boko Haram jihadists were already strong in Nigeria ... now they open a section in Cameroon, with local youth in a country before without extremists

Beatriz de la Rosa / Actuall
March 6, 2016

Nigeria has become the country where more Christians have died persecuted for their faith.

Between 9,000 and 11,000 Christians have been killed for their beliefs, a large number of houses have been destroyed, including 13,000 churches that have either reduced to ashes or have closed. More than one million Christians have been forced to leave their homes to find a safe place to live.  It is explained in the report of the organization Open Doors International along with the Christian Association of Nigeria in the report 'Crushed but not defeated' in revealing the impact it has had violence against church in northern Nigeria.

Nigeria is officially a secular country with a current constitution which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In southern Nigeria there is economic stability, freedom of expression and peace on the current situation. Instead, the Northern cities are predominantly Muslim and in the last 15 years several radical groups have emerged with the sole desire to impose the Caliphate and impose Sharia (Islamic law). In the north the Christian population has suffered from marginalization and violence systematically. Murders, rapes marginalization and discrimination has led to the near extinction of Christians in the north of the country.

Terrorist organizations as Boko Haram or Hausa's population, a Muslim sector of great influence in Nigeria, have attacked the large Christian minority mercilessly. The persecution has led to the near extinction of Christians in some areas of the north. They were murdered in the streets, and women and girls living in constant danger of being kidnapped, raped and murdered. Many of them are given as slaves to the military. In addition Islamists throw Christian families from their homes and prevent them from returning. Christians, in short, can not have their own business or go to college or university.  However, Christians survive.

In northern Nigeria have surfaced, they have remained strong in their beliefs and have positively impacted many Muslims. Open Doors has interviewed a large number of Christians who have remained in the area despite the fear and threats. Their testimonies reflect that reality is very different. Christians have grown by 31% since 2014, one of the worst years of persecution by Boko Haram, in fact churches have grown by 66% in both members and visitors. Christians have claimed that their spiritual and personal relationship with God has grown significantly since the persecution became more noticeable. They say they have now understood what the love of neighbor and the "enemy" who have stopped being afraid and started to pray for them. Prayer, in fact, has increased by 65%.

One respondent stated: "Violence has reaffirmed my faith in God, the few that we have been continuing to grow spiritually, we will not hate our executioners, hatred just brings more hatred, Islam needs the love of Christianity" assured . Nigerian Christians have understood, says Open Doors, which in Nigeria both religions live together. "We need to coexist, both north and south formed a single country, the tension must be reduced , " said another witness. Despite the trauma living in Nigeria, Christians only demanding one thing: "We want our right to freedom of speech recognition, we do not want revenge, only hatred is over and we can live in communion with Islam , " says one interviewed by the association.

The courage of Nigerian Christians has impacted the Muslim society. Despite not being able to openly discuss their beliefs in Africa are more Christians than Muslims, they can no longer contain the conversion to Christianity, why resort to violence.  According to sociologist Massimo Introvigne, founder of CESNUR, in 1900 a population of 10 million Christians in Africa was estimated, but today the sociologist estimated 500 million.

Is a Catholic concept of mercy at the heart of true Islam?

Professor Saeed Khan spoke at Cor unum convention on the 10th anniversary of "Deus caritas est" Feb. 25-26, 2016. Credit: Alexy Gotovskiy/CNA.

By Elise Harris
Vatican City, Feb 27, 2016 / 09:23 am (CNA).- Professor Saeed Khan, an expert in Islam, has said that mercy is central to the Muslim faith – a mercy with roots in Catholicism and which is opposed to the misguided, fundamentalist interpretations of some extremist groups.

Mercy is “the core of Islam,” Saeed Khan told CNA in a Feb. 25 interview, adding that the Muslim concept of mercy “is actually an expansion of Catholic notions of mercy.” While the conventional understanding of mercy is typically “showing compassion and forgiveness for those in need,” in Islam mercy also means “a blessing and a gift,” he said. The concept of mercy as both a blessing and a gift shows God’s omniscience and omnipotence in the sense that mercy is proactively given, rather than simply reactively received by someone seeking forgiveness, Khan explained. Because of this, creation itself “is a mercy to mankind,” he said, adding that the various prophets throughout history, including, in his words, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jesus and Mohamed, “are also mercies on mankind because they have been the ones to transmit and convey the divine message.”

Khan is a lecturer for Detroit-based Wayne State University’s Department of Near East and Asian Studies. He teaches courses on Islamic and Middle East History, Islamic Civilizations and the History of Islamic Political Thought. He was present in Rome as a speaker for a Feb. 25-26 conference organized by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the publication of retired pontiff Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est,” meaning “God is love.”

The document was published Dec. 25, 2005, just eight months after his election as Bishop of Rome. Conference participants came from all over the world to discuss the encyclical from theological and charitable perspectives, as well as the perspective of other religions such as Judaism and Islam. Khan himself spoke on the first day of the conference, offering participants his perspective on the Muslim understanding of mercy. In his comments to CNA, Khan said the Islamic concept of God’s closeness to humanity is that he “is closer to you than your own jugular vein.”- This shows that a very intimate relationship that exists which can only be infused by love, he said. “So when Pope Benedict XVI mentioned in his encyclical that the primacy of love and how God then manifests that love then to his creation that is also an Islamic concept.” Khan said mercy is also closely linked to the concept of charity. In Islam, charity is “a devise of mercy” that goes beyond providing material needs such as food and clothing, but reaches the spiritual level, he said.

As an example, he pointed to a famous saying of the Prophet Mohamed that “even a smile is a form of charity” since it forms a human connection. This is especially true, he said, at a time when humanity is becoming increasingly more impersonal, despite advancements in technology and communications.  However, while mercy is “the core of Islam,” there is tragically a difference between “Islam as an ideal and Islam as it is applied and as it is practiced by people,” Khan said, noting that the same can be said of any religion. “Unfortunately there are people who will invoke the name of Islam to all kinds of unspeakable and egregious things,” he said. “Those may claim to be believers who act out in such vengeful and violent ways, but again, it is such an anomaly and such an aberration from the divine message that it’s very difficult to be able to say with a certain straight face that this is really what God intended.”

The professor said that instead, to get to the heart of true Islam one has to go back to the sources of in order to see the real divine message and understand what God is really mandating.  Mercy, Khan said, “is so embedded in Islam that in several places within the Quran it says ‘and establish regular prayer and charity.’ He noted how two of the 99 attributes Muslims recognize in God are “all-merciful” and “ever-merciful.” These phrases, he added, are invoked at least 17 different times during the five daily prayers Muslims recite throughout the day.  The terms are also invoked by Muslims before they embark on “any act or deed,” so therefore the concept of an all-merciful God also exists in Islam, the professor explained.

When it comes to verses in the Quran supporting vengeance and violence such as death by the sword, Khan said that Islam is “a totalistic religion” which also provides instructions on what to do in a time of war, persecution or when one’s life is threatened. He acknowledged that there are sanctions for war and for committing physical violence in the Quran, but said they are “a last resort,” and are heavily regulated to societies that would otherwise be “very unregulated, very anarchic, even more brutal than they already are. Turning to the current Jubilee of Mercy, the professor touched on Pope Francis’ numerous affirmations that the Holy Year isn’t just for Catholics, but for people of all religions, including our “Muslim brothers.”

When asked how Muslims can participate in the Jubilee, Khan said that one of the most important things to remember is that it’s not just God who is merciful, “but we who are his instruments on earth have an obligation as well as the opportunity to express that kind mercy. He noted how the Quran speaks to two different audiences, namely, believers and non-believers, and that mercy is something that can and should be commonly expressed “It is incumbent on Muslims to understand that when it comes to mercy, this is something that then binds both believers and all of humanity in the fact that mercy can be displayed, and should be displayed, to everyone,” he said.
 

Eucharistic Mercy for Inner Healing

February 24, 2016. Kathleen Beckman

A Catholic who seeks inner healing is similar to the traveler on a journey. The Holy Spirit helps him to become aware of his heart wound and mercifully sets him on the road of encounter with Jesus. The healing journey is comparable to the situation of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

On the day of Christ’s Resurrection, two men were walking to the village of Emmaus. They were discussing all the recent events. They must have been perplexed, their hopes dashed. What were they to make of everything now that Jesus had been crucified? Failure? Then Jesus drew close to them and began to walk and talk with them.

But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and . . . told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24:13–17, 28–35)

The journey to Eucharistic healing includes many of the emotions experienced by the disciples on the road to Emmaus. One might be perplexed by a circumstance or become profoundly disappointed that what once looked so promising now is ending in failure. There is a breach that wounds the heart. Jesus draws near, but our eyes are kept from recognizing Him. We are in a state of spiritual blindness and deafness. Our understanding is darkened for a time.

Providence will arrange a surprising encounter in which we can see again. Our eyes will be opened in the breaking of the bread. Our heart will begin to burn with love again. The Eucharist rekindles the fire of love to cauterize the bleeding wound. Jesus turns even painful experiences into something beautiful—in His perfect time. Bitterness fades. Trust is possible again. Christ absorbs the pain. A new journey begins. “[I]f any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Eucharistic Mercy
In ways seen and unseen the worthy reception of the Eucharist heals sin sickness. I am one who received inner healing through the sacraments of the Church, especially through my daily Eucharistic life. The need began when the pain of two traumas in my family deeply wounded my heart. By the grace of God I came to understand that because of these two traumas, I lost clarity about my true identity. Once secure as a child of God and experiencing only the love of family and friends into my mid-thirties, two traumas, two years apart, caused me to doubt others and myself. Because of cruel words and deeds, a great spiritual battle ensued between the true and false self. In prayer, an inspiration came, “Take care to heal so that you do not project your wounds upon my Body, the Church.” Jesus in the Eucharist became my Divine Physician. At daily Mass and Adoration, divine mercy penetrated my heart wounds, curing the lies of rejection and healing the traumatic memories. Several priests also helped; one personally guided me through the life-changing Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola weekly for a year. I learned to listen, to recognize the still small voice of the Lord, and to know the movements of my own heart—desolation, consolation, discernment, etc.

Prudence requires that we not over spiritualize inner healing, since Christ also heals communally with health professionals. The Catholic Medical Association is a grounded apostolate that supports the healing ministry of the Church. The Church’s healing, deliverance, and exorcism ministry is another way in which Christ heals, and we most often consult with medical professionals. It is not surprising that divine mercy works beautifully through a variety of ways for the care of the beloved. God desires us to be whole and holy.

To Know Yourself in the Gaze of Eucharistic Love
Fr. Jim McManus’s Catholic perspective on healing through forgiveness, and the need for healthy self-esteem for a life of happiness offers good insights. God wills to bring us to a place of joyful, grateful self-acceptance. Fr. McManus calls this a spirituality of true self-esteem wherein we know our true identity as precious children of God. Sometimes we live in the “house of the destructive word” as Fr. Mc Manus terms it. Destructive words impoverish life; hold us back. Constructive words affirm and encourage even when correcting. Healing starts when we move from the “house of the destructive word to the house of the constructive word.” There are so many opportunities to build one another up spiritually and emotionally; too often we do the exact opposite. Other people or the devil, or both, tell us lies about ourselves but Abba Father tells us the truth. Nothing separates us from the love of God. Is Christ enough for you?

Having prayed with, listened to, and counseled countless people at international retreats, I have found a common malady in which people struggle with their identity stemming from what they “do” or “have.” This is contrary to the Catholic perspective of knowing that we are “temples of the Holy Spirit” (cf. 1 Cor. 6:19). The Eucharist beautifies God’s temple.

Fr. McManus understands the separation of psychology and theology, but he sees a synthesis in which our psychological structures relate to our spiritual selves. This challenges core beliefs about the question “Who am I?” Jesus seeks to bring our self-image into alignment with the truth of divine love. The Eucharist can affect this because by it we are incorporated into Incarnate Truth. When we gaze at the Eucharist in Adoration, Christ mirrors our dignity to us and heals our self-esteem according to the biblical truth of His love.

Eucharistic Healing, Resurrection, the Holy Spirit’s work
In the Eucharist we have direct physical contact with Jesus. This is an important distinction. In the Gospel accounts of people being healed, we discover the fact that everyone who touched Jesus was healed. “[T]hey . . . brought to him all that were sick, and begged him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched it were made well” (Matt. 14:35–36). When we receive the Eucharist, we are touching Jesus, and our communion is physical and spiritual. We touch the Lord as contrite sinners in need of healing medicine and receive Him worthily faithful according to the Church’s norms. The sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion are intersecting rivers of divine mercy for healing.

The Eucharist bridges the gap between fallen humanity and redeemed humanity and prepares us for our glorified humanity in Christ’s second coming. We are in a process of deification through the Eucharistic life. This process is one of healing from fallen nature (sin) to redeemed nature (sanctity) to glorified nature (transforming union with God: beatific vision). The Holy Spirit is the key agent in the process of transformation in Christ, wherein we are healed. St. Paul often speaks of the Holy Spirit, who mercifully penetrates the areas of our personality that would hold us captive. It is the Holy Spirit who breaks open the mysteries of God’s mercy and empowers us to be free. The Holy Spirit brings us to an abiding encounter with Christ in the Eucharist, in which we are grafted like branches onto the vine (cf. John 15:4). This communion is by no means temporary. The physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist is vital because our physicality, our bodies matter as “temples of the Holy Spirit” (cf. 1 Cor. 6:19).

Healing is resurrection. What was dead is brought to life, what was diseased is restored to health, what was infected is made clean again, what was dormant is awakened. The Eucharist affects your resurrection. Fr. Lawrence Lovasik teaches,

“Holy Communion establishes between Jesus Christ and us not merely spiritual contact but physical contact as well through the ‘species’ of bread. The resurrection of the body can be traced from this physical contact with Christ. The resurrected bodies of those who have worthily received the Eucharist during their lifetime will be more strikingly resplendent because of their frequent contact, during life, with the risen Body of their Lord.”

Prayer to Become a Living Monstrance
Lord Jesus, please fashion me into a living Eucharistic monstrance so that I may be a vessel of mercy carrying your love to others. Through our Eucharistic incorporation, grant that I may be a child of the light, salt of the earth, bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty, new wine, and healing oil for others. May people see You in my servant’s heart, You in the light of my eyes, in the warmth of my heart, in the works of my hands, in the words of my voice, in the incense of my prayer, in the lightness of my laughter, in the glistening of my tears, in the lowliness of your creature. Hide me, I pray, in the gilded monstrance of Your merciful heart so that I will be a living monstrance radiating healing rays of mercy.

Joint Declaration From Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, through her intercession, inspire fraternity in all those who venerate her, so that they may be reunited, in God’s own time, in the peace and harmony of the one people of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and indivisible Trinity!

February 12, 2016•ZENIT

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with all of you” (2 Cor 13:13).

1. By God the Father’s will, from which all gifts come, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the help of the Holy Spirit Consolator, we, Pope Francis and Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, have met today in Havana. We give thanks to God, glorified in the Trinity, for this meeting, the first in history.
 It is with joy that we have met like brothers in the Christian faith who encounter one another “to speak face to face” (2Jn12), from heart to heart, to discuss the mutual relations between the Churches, the crucial problems of our faithful, and the outlook for the progress of human civilization.

2. Our fraternal meeting has taken place in Cuba, at the crossroads of North and South, East and West. It is from this island, the symbol of the hopes of the “New World” and the dramatic events of the history of the twentieth century, that we address our words to all the peoples of Latin America and of the other continents.
 It is a source of joy that the Christian faith is growing here in a dynamic way. The powerful religious potential of Latin America, its centuries–old Christian tradition, grounded in the personal experience of millions of people, are the pledge of a great future for this region.

3. By meeting far from the longstanding disputes of the “Old World”, we experience with a particular sense of urgency the need for the shared labour of Catholics and Orthodox, who are called, with gentleness and respect, to give an explanation to the world of the hope in us (cf.1Pet3:15).

4. We thank God for the gifts received from the coming into the world of His only Son. We share the same spiritual Tradition of the first millennium of Christianity. The witnesses of this Tradition are the Most Holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints we venerate. Among them are innumerable martyrs who have given witness to their faithfulness to Christ and have become the “seed of Christians”.

5. Notwithstanding this shared Tradition of the first ten centuries, for nearly one thousand years Catholics and Orthodox have been deprived of communion in the Eucharist. We have been divided by wounds caused by old and recent conflicts, by differences inherited from our ancestors, in the understanding and expression of our faith in God, one in three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are pained by the loss of unity, the outcome of human weakness and of sin, which has occurred despite the priestly prayer of Christ the Saviour: “So that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you … so that they may be one, as we are one” (Jn17:21).

6. Mindful of the permanence of many obstacles, it is our hope that our meeting may contribute to the re–establishment of this unity willed by God, for which Christ prayed. May our meeting inspire Christians throughout the world to pray to the Lord with renewed fervour for the full unity of all His disciples. In a world which yearns not only for our words but also for tangible gestures, may this meeting be a sign of hope for all people of goodwill!

7. In our determination to undertake all that is necessary to overcome the historical divergences we have inherited, we wish to combine our efforts to give witness to the Gospel of Christ and to the shared heritage of the Church of the first millennium, responding together to the challenges of the contemporary world. Orthodox and Catholics must learn to give unanimously witness in those spheres in which this is possible and necessary. Human civilization has entered into a period of epochal change. Our Christian conscience and our pastoral responsibility compel us not to remain passive in the face of challenges requiring a shared response.

8. Our gaze must firstly turn to those regions of the world where Christians are victims of persecution. In many countries of the Middle East and North Africa whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated. Their churches are being barbarously ravaged and looted, their sacred objects profaned, their monuments destroyed. It is with pain that we call to mind the situation in Syria, Iraq and other countries of the Middle East, and the massive exodus of Christians from the land in which our faith was first disseminated and in which they have lived since the time of the Apostles, together with other religious communities.

9. We call upon the international community to act urgently in order to prevent the further expulsion of Christians from the Middle East. In raising our voice in defence of persecuted Christians, we wish to express our compassion for the suffering experienced by the faithful of other religious traditions who have also become victims of civil war, chaos and terrorist violence.

10. Thousands of victims have already been claimed in the violence in Syria and Iraq, which has left many other millions without a home or means of sustenance. We urge the international community to seek an end to the violence and terrorism and, at the same time, to contribute through dialogue to a swift return to civil peace. Large–scale humanitarian aid must be assured to the afflicted populations and to the many refugees seeking safety in neighbouring lands.
 We call upon all those whose influence can be brought to bear upon the destiny of those kidnapped, including the Metropolitans of Aleppo, Paul and John Ibrahim, who were taken in April 2013, to make every effort to ensure their prompt liberation.

11. We lift our prayers to Christ, the Saviour of the world, asking for the return of peace in the Middle East, “the fruit of justice” (Is32:17), so that fraternal co–existence among the various populations, Churches and religions may be strengthened, enabling refugees to return to their homes, wounds to be healed, and the souls of the slain innocent to rest in peace.
 We address, in a fervent appeal, all the parts that may be involved in the conflicts to demonstrate good will and to take part in the negotiating table. At the same time, the international community must undertake every possible effort to end terrorism through common, joint and coordinated action. We call on all the countries involved in the struggle against terrorism to responsible and prudent action. We exhort all Christians and all believers of God to pray fervently to the providential Creator of the world to protect His creation from destruction and not permit a new world war. In order to ensure a solid and enduring peace, specific efforts must be undertaken to rediscover the common values uniting us, based on the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

12. We bow before the martyrdom of those who, at the cost of their own lives, have given witness to the truth of the Gospel, preferring death to the denial of Christ. We believe that these martyrs of our times, who belong to various Churches but who are united by their shared suffering, are a pledge of the unity of Christians. It is to you who suffer for Christ’s sake that the word of the Apostle is directed: “Beloved … rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly” (1Pet4:12–13).

13. Interreligious dialogue is indispensable in our disturbing times. Differences in the understanding of religious truths must not impede people of different faiths to live in peace and harmony. In our current context, religious leaders have the particular responsibility to educate their faithful in a spirit which is respectful of the convictions of those belonging to other religious traditions. Attempts to justify criminal acts with religious slogans are altogether unacceptable. No crime may be committed in God’s name, “since God is not the God of disorder but of peace” (1Cor14:33).

14. In affirming the foremost value of religious freedom, we give thanks to God for the current unprecedented renewal of the Christian faith in Russia, as well as in many other countries of Eastern Europe, formerly dominated for decades by atheist regimes. Today, the chains of militant atheism have been broken and in many places Christians can now freely confess their faith. Thousands of new churches have been built over the last quarter of a century, as well as hundreds of monasteries and theological institutions. Christian communities undertake notable works in the fields of charitable aid and social development, providing diversified forms of assistance to the needy. Orthodox and Catholics often work side by side. Giving witness to the values of the Gospel they attest to the existence of the shared spiritual foundations of human co–existence.

15. At the same time, we are concerned about the situation in many countries in which Christians are increasingly confronted by restrictions to religious freedom, to the right to witness to one’s convictions and to live in conformity with them. In particular, we observe that the transformation of some countries into secularized societies, estranged from all reference to God and to His truth, constitutes a grave threat to religious freedom. It is a source of concern for us that there is a current curtailment of the rights of Christians, if not their outright discrimination, when certain political forces, guided by an often very aggressive secularist ideology, seek to relegate them to the margins of public life.

16. The process of European integration, which began after centuries of blood–soaked conflicts, was welcomed by many with hope, as a guarantee of peace and security. Nonetheless, we invite vigilance against an integration that is devoid of respect for religious identities. While remaining open to the contribution of other religions to our civilization, it is our conviction that Europe must remain faithful to its Christian roots. We call upon Christians of Eastern and Western Europe to unite in their shared witness to Christ and the Gospel, so that Europe may preserve its soul, shaped by two thousand years of Christian tradition.

17. Our gaze is also directed to those facing serious difficulties, who live in extreme need and poverty while the material wealth of humanity increases. We cannot remain indifferent to the destinies of millions of migrants and refugees knocking on the doors of wealthy nations. The unrelenting consumerism of some more developed countries is gradually depleting the resources of our planet. The growing inequality in the distribution of material goods increases the feeling of the injustice of the international order that has emerged.

18. The Christian churches are called to defend the demands of justice, the respect for peoples’ traditions, and an authentic solidarity towards all those who suffer. We Christians cannot forget that “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, that no human being might boast before God” (1Cor1:27–29).

19. The family is the natural centre of human life and society. We are concerned about the crisis in the family in many countries. Orthodox and Catholics share the same conception of the family, and are called to witness that it is a path of holiness, testifying to the faithfulness of the spouses in their mutual interaction, to their openness to the procreation and rearing of their children, to solidarity between the generations and to respect for the weakest.

20. The family is based on marriage, an act of freely given and faithful love between a man and a woman. It is love that seals their union and teaches them to accept one another as a gift. Marriage is a school of love and faithfulness. We regret that other forms of cohabitation have been placed on the same level as this union, while the concept, consecrated in the biblical tradition, of paternity and maternity as the distinct vocation of man and woman in marriage is being banished from the public conscience.

21. We call on all to respect the inalienable right to life. Millions are denied the very right to be born into the world. The blood of the unborn cries out to God (cf.Gen4:10).
 The emergence of so-called euthanasia leads elderly people and the disabled begin to feel that they are a burden on their families and on society in general.

We are also concerned about the development of biomedical reproduction technology, as the manipulation of human life represents an attack on the foundations of human existence, created in the image of God. We believe that it is our duty to recall the immutability of Christian moral principles, based on respect for the dignity of the individual called into being according to the Creator’s plan.

22. Today, in a particular way, we address young Christians. You, young people, have the task of not hiding your talent in the ground (cf. Mt25:25), but of using all the abilities God has given you to confirm Christ’s truth in the world, incarnating in your own lives the evangelical commandments of the love of God and of one’s neighbour. Do not be afraid of going against the current, defending God’s truth, to which contemporary secular norms are often far from conforming.

23. God loves each of you and expects you to be His disciples and apostles. Be the light of the world so that those around you may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father (cf. Mt5:14,16). Raise your children in the Christian faith, transmitting to them the pearl of great price that is the faith (cf. Mt13:46) you have received from your parents and forbears. Remember that “you have been purchased at a great price” (1Cor6:20), at the cost of the death on the cross of the Man–God Jesus Christ.

24. Orthodox and Catholics are united not only by the shared Tradition of the Church of the first millennium, but also by the mission to preach the Gospel of Christ in the world today. This mission entails mutual respect for members of the Christian communities and excludes any form of proselytism.
 We are not competitors but brothers, and this concept must guide all our mutual actions as well as those directed to the outside world. We urge Catholics and Orthodox in all countries to learn to live together in peace and love, and to be “in harmony with one another” (Rm15:5). Consequently, it cannot be accepted that disloyal means be used to incite believers to pass from one Church to another, denying them their religious freedom and their traditions. We are called upon to put into practice the precept of the apostle Paul: “Thus I aspire to proclaim the gospel not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on another’s foundation” (Rm15:20).

25. It is our hope that our meeting may also contribute to reconciliation wherever tensions exist between Greek Catholics and Orthodox. It is today clear that the past method of “uniatism”, understood as the union of one community to the other, separating it from its Church, is not the way to re–establish unity. Nonetheless, the ecclesial communities which emerged in these historical circumstances have the right to exist and to undertake all that is necessary to meet the spiritual needs of their faithful, while seeking to live in peace with their neighbours. Orthodox and Greek Catholics are in need of reconciliation and of mutually acceptable forms of co–existence.

26. We deplore the hostility in Ukraine that has already caused many victims, inflicted innumerable wounds on peaceful inhabitants and thrown society into a deep economic and humanitarian crisis. We invite all the parts involved in the conflict to prudence, to social solidarity and to action aimed at constructing peace. We invite our Churches in Ukraine to work towards social harmony, to refrain from taking part in the confrontation, and to not support any further development of the conflict.

27. It is our hope that the schism between the Orthodox faithful in Ukraine may be overcome through existing canonical norms, that all the Orthodox Christians of Ukraine may live in peace and harmony, and that the Catholic communities in the country may contribute to this, in such a way that our Christian brotherhood may become increasingly evident.

28. In the contemporary world, which is both multiform yet united by a shared destiny, Catholics and Orthodox are called to work together fraternally in proclaiming the Good News of salvation, to testify together to the moral dignity and authentic freedom of the person, “so that the world may believe” (Jn17:21). This world, in which the spiritual pillars of human existence are progressively disappearing, awaits from us a compelling Christian witness in all spheres of personal and social life. Much of the future of humanity will depend on our capacity to give shared witness to the Spirit of truth in these difficult times.

29. May our bold witness to God’s truth and to the Good News of salvation be sustained by the Man–God Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, who strengthens us with the unfailing promise: “Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom” (Lk12:32)!
 Christ is the well–spring of joy and hope. Faith in Him transfigures human life, fills it with meaning. This is the conviction borne of the experience of all those to whom Peter refers in his words: “Once you were ‘no people’ but now you are God’s people; you ‘had not received mercy’ but now you have received mercy” (1Pet2:10).

30. With grace–filled gratitude for the gift of mutual understanding manifested during our meeting, let us with hope turn to the Most Holy Mother of God, invoking her with the words of this ancient prayer: “We seek refuge under the protection of your mercy, Holy Mother of God”. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, through her intercession, inspire fraternity in all those who venerate her, so that they may be reunited, in God’s own time, in the peace and harmony of the one people of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and indivisible Trinity!

Francis Bishop of Rome
Pope of the Catholic Church Kirill Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia

12 February 2016, Havana (Cuba)
 

Massive crowd in Rome protests proposal to recognize same-sex unions

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FamilyDayRoma
February 01, 2016

An enormous crowd gathered at the Circus Maximus in Rome on January 31 to protest plans for the legal recognition of same-sex unions in Italy.

The size of the crowd for the “Family Day” demonstration was a matter of keen debate among different news outlets. Some referred to “thousands” of demonstrations, while others said “tens of thousands;” the event’s organizers claimed that over 1 million people had attended. Although there were no reliable statistics on the crowd size, at least 1,500 buses had been chartered for the occasion, with countless other participants arriving by car, foot, or public transportation.

Speakers at the Family Day rally concentrated on the argument that homosexual individuals already have legal rights, and a move toward acceptance of their unions would endanger the principle that every child should have a mother and a father.

Legislation to register civil unions will be taken up for debate in the Italian Senate on February 2. Although the proposed legislation stops well short of recognizing same-sex marraige, as other European nations have done, popular resistance in Italy has been fierce. Massimo Gandolfini, one of the main organizers of the Sunday rally, remarked: “Italy is one of the few Western countries that is still resisting this deviation.”

The Family Day rally was largely organized by Catholic lay groups. The Italian bishops’ conference—which in past years has led the opposition to acceptance of homosexual unions—did not openly support the event. Cardinal Angelo Bagnaso of Genoa, the president of the episcopal conference, made a strong statement of support for male-female marriage last week; but the secretary-general of the conference, Bishop Nuncio Galantino, has been perceived as open to the new legislation. Pope Francis has avoided public comment on the issue.
 

Muslims against Christianophobia
The Middle East needs Christians, says a leading Lebanese Muslim.
Mohammed Sammak | Feb 2 2016

In June 2015, the Islamic charitable association Maq?sid promoted the drafting of the Beirut Declaration, a document that aims to counter religious violence and promote an enlightened interpretation of Islamic culture. One of the contributors condemns the subversive rhetoric used by extremists against both Christians and Muslims. His position is born out of a conciliatory interpretation of Islam, and the belief that Muslims need Christians (and vice versa) in order to survive.

The concerns currently gripping Eastern Christians are not unfounded. It is a reaction to the tragic events that have shaken many Arab countries, and in which the victims were Christians. People who have been killed for their faith, forced to emigrate, taken prisoner and deprived of their places of worship, churches and monasteries.

This wave of religious extremism, characterised by violence and dominion over vast areas (especially in Iraq and Syria), but above all by its subversive, Takfiri slogans, has not been met by an Islamic counterwave capable of a robust legal and practical response. This has increased among Christians the feelings of frustration and fear for their future and destiny. The resulting mass emigrations represent an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of modern Muslim-Christian relations.

Since the middle of the 20th century, the percentage of Christians living in Arab countries has fallen by more than half, and the bleeding is likely to increase if subversive extremism continues to grow. Christians have many reasons to be concerned. The most important of these is linked to certain religious notions espoused by extremist Islamic movements, which they interpret as central tenets of the Islamic faith, but which, in point of fact, are nothing of the sort.

Dhimma vs. citizenship
Some extremist Islamic movements deny the faith of Christians and Jews on the basis of incorrect understanding of two Qur’anic verses: “Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam” (3:19) and “whoever desires a religion other than Islam shall not be accepted by God” (3:85). This is the consequence of an exclusivist vision of faith in God, which is limited solely to the message of Muhammad. In truth, this misunderstanding leads these Islamic movements away from the spirit of Islam and the essence of the Qur’anic text. In fact, the meaning of Islam is submission to the will of the one true God. In light of this clarification, it can be seen that being a Muslim does not mean believing exclusively in what God revealed to Muhammad. The essence of Islam is to believe in all God’s prophets and messengers, from Abraham to Muhammad, and all the heavenly scriptures that were revealed to them, insofar as these writings were inspired by the Word of God, and especially the Gospel and the Torah, which, recalls the Qur’an, contain “guidance and light” (5:44-46).

Dhimmitude is not a Qur’anic notion, any more than it is a religious statute. It is a legal “pact” concluded (during a given period) between two parties: the Muslims who were in power and the Christians who were under their protection. At the time when the Muslims established this system it represented the best and fairest way of regulating coexistence with non-Muslims.

Today, however, we have the concept of citizenship. During the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, this pact caused resentment because it relegated the Christian to the status of a second-class citizen within the framework it had established, so that he felt deprived of both his dignity and his rights. Re-evoking this notion in today’s day and age would be tantamount to calling for a return of the inhuman, uncivilised and ungodly excesses of those times.

For this reason, Christians regard the dhimma system as an attack on patriotism and coexistence. And they are right. The dhimma system is an anachronistic notion that is no longer valid, since the parties have long since dissolved the contract it was based on, which has been superseded by the nation-state, created by Muslims and Christians together. With the consolidation of the concept of citizenship, which guarantees the equality of citizens regardless of religion, confession, race and gender, the dhimma has become a historical fact, and is not a definitive, stable legal precept. It goes without saying that superseding the dhimma does not signify superseding Islamic sharia law or Islamic doctrine. Dhimmitude is a sad page in a long history that has seen its own light and dark ages, as emphasised by the Apostolic Exhortation on Lebanon in 1995.

Eastern Christians: conqueror crusaders?
Whenever there is a political problem involving Christians, irrespective of whether the issue regards a political party, or a political or religious authority, the Crusades are dusted off and used to defame, discredit and damage them. But the reality is that the Middle Eastern Crusades were not Christian attempts at proselytising the region. They were expansionist campaigns, carried out by the West under the banner of the cross, with the aim of liberating Jerusalem from the Muslims. This is demonstrated by the fact that the first victims of the campaigns were the faithful of the Eastern Churches and the Jews, from Constantinople to Jerusalem itself. The Crusaders destroyed churches, killed monks and priests, and burned Christian towns and villages inhabited by peaceful people. The former Coptic Pope, Shenouda, once mentioned to me that the Coptic Church has canonised some nuns who were killed by the Crusaders. Arab historians soon realised how things really stood, defining these expeditions as “Frankish campaigns”. They knew that Eastern Christians were as much victims of these campaigns as Muslims were.

Similarly, whenever a crisis erupts in relations between the Arabs and the United States, or any European country, Arab Christians are accused of being a fifth column of the Western enemy against Muslims and Arabs. The origin of this error, or rather, this sin, lies in the confusion that is generated in the minds of Islamic extremists between the notions of the West and Christianity. This leads them to assume that Eastern Christianity is simply an extension of the West, its spearhead, or that Eastern Christians are the remnants of the Conqueror Crusaders.

Two facts belie this view. First, the West has renounced Christianity, severing its cultural link with religion and embracing secularism as the foundation of its societies. When the West sets itself up as a defender of the rights of Eastern Christians, it is not moved to do so out of any reasons of faith, rather by the desire to protect its interests in the region. Secondly, Eastern Christians have taken a stand against Western colonialism and the Zionist occupation, as evidenced by the national movements in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, but above all in Palestine, which were led by Christians or in which Christians played an active role.

Takfir and human dignity
Reticence about takfir [“anathema”] directed against non-Muslims is the foundation that makes it possible to level charges of anathema also against Muslims. This anathema is even used against Muslims of the same confession simply because they express a differing political or personal opinion! But, in reality, the noble Qur’an describes Christians as believers and praises its priests and its monks. The Prophet Muhammad established relations with them both before and after the start of his mission. He concluded agreements with them based on the principle that “our rights are their rights, our obligations are their obligations,” and prohibited his followers from violating their people, their churches and their monasteries, defining such places as houses of God where His name resonates and is praised.

This is confirmed by the covenant between the Prophet and the Christians of Najran, and the covenant between ‘Umar and the Patriarch of Jerusalem. The monopolisation of the faith, and the exclusion of those who adhere to other religions and creeds from God’s mercy, contrast with the Islamic notion of faith, which extends to all the People of the Book. Indeed, this notion is not limited to Christians and Jews, but may also be extended to others. In fact, as the Almighty affirms in the Qur’an, He holds men to account only after sending a Messenger, that is to say after the way that leads to faith in Him has been revealed. The Almighty has also stated that many of His prophets and messengers are not mentioned in the Qur’an.

Extremists limit the right to human dignity to adherents of the Muslim faith. For this reason they do not accord the Christians, members of the united Arab family and nation, the right to dignity. But the Qur’an says: “Verily we have honoured the Children of Adam” (17:70) meaning that Man is honoured by God as a human being, not for his faith in a religion or his beliefs. God has chosen men (above all other creatures) as His representatives on earth, without making it a condition that they be Muslims or adherents of a particular religion or doctrine.

The restrictive practice of limiting dignity to a specific group of human beings is a mistake. It is at odds with the openness of Islam, which teaches us that dignity is a gift for everyone, and that all men have the right to it. So, how do we safeguard these people, the children of one nation and one family? It is the rights that come with citizenship that make everyone equal, without distinction.

“Cleave all to the rope of God”
The concept of diversity, which, according to Islam, exists and persists because of the will and wisdom of God, contradicts the idea of ??a monopoly on truth claimed by the extremists and fanatics, who consider any thought other than their own disbelief and, as such, a deviation from true religion. People are different, this is a natural fact. And only God, on the Day of Resurrection, may judge human beings, taking into account the way in which they have differed from one another. It follows that no one has the right to scrutinise the conscience of another, in order to judge him. The right to judge is reserved exclusively for the Almighty, on the day of resurrection, as is clearly explained in the Qur’an. It is true that Islam and Christianity differ on their understanding and definition of the Unity of God, but it is equally true that Christianity no longer affirms that God is the third of three. Christianity states that God is one, merciful and compassionate.

Islam itself distinguishes between diversity, which it calls upon its followers to welcome and respect, and fragmentation, which it rejects and warns against. As we have already cited above, the Qur’an says: “Cleave all to the Rope of God and be not divided among yourselves” (3:103). He did not say “let there be no difference between you.”

One can hardly deny that Arab and Eastern Christians show big concerns about sharia, which places non-Muslims outside the sphere of citizenship, or renders them second-class citizens. And once again, the Christians are right. In principle, the obligation to apply the Islamic sharia to Christians contradicts the Qur’an, which states: “Let the people of the Gospel judge by what God hath revealed therein” (5:47). Hence, the offenders are those who have not judged according to what God has revealed to them.

The Noble Qur’an did not tell the people of the Gospel to judge according to what God has revealed in the Qur’an! In light of this, how is it possible to contemplate imposing sharia on those who should not be subject to it, when Islam states “for each We have made for you a law and a clear way” (5:48)? How can a religion that professes non-compulsion, as taught by 2:256, force Christians to follow sharia?

Caliphate: Qur’anic or post-Qur’anic origins?
Today, with the advent of the so-called Islamic State, talk has again turned to the idea of the Caliphate. It is understood as a religious state that would marginalise Christians. However, the institution, as such, is not mentioned in the Qur’an, neither can it be considered a legacy of the Prophet.

Basically, in Islam, there is no such thing as a clerical religious state, as recently reiterated by al-Azhar. The Caliphate is an institution that was established upon the death of the Prophet, in order to confer authority on the Muslim ruler as successor to Muhammad. The successors of Ab? Bakr al-Sidd?q, successor to God’s Messenger, bore the title Commander of the Faithful. Even before the death of Muhammad, his companions differed on who should assume power after the Prophet, and how this power should be conferred. They certainly would not have needed to gather to discuss this matter if a text on the Caliphate had existed. Three of the four rightly guided Caliphs (‘Umar, ‘Uthman and ‘Ali) were assassinated and their differences generated a schism (fitna) that has not yet been resolved. Over time, the differences have continued to multiply and accumulate, one upon the ruins of the other.

To give a religious dimension to the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan, who was neither an Arab, nor a descendant of the Quraysh (the Prophet’s tribe), took the title of Caliph. Subsequently the British, who wanted to punish the Sultan for having sided with Germany during World War I, attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish a new caliphate in the Arab world or in India, which was then under their control. At this point, they successfully campaigned to abolish the Caliphate as an institution.

But Islam did not suffer the same fate, persisting as a religion protected by the will of God. This proves that the fall of the caliphate system does not necessarily mean the fall of Islam; and similarly, that the return to the caliphate system does not mean the return of Islam. Islam is not a political system for Muslims, but the message of the Lord of the worlds intended for all men.

Islamophobia and Christianophobia
The phenomena of fanaticism and extremism – of such great concern for Eastern Christians – constitute the main reasons for their emigration. In addition to damaging the fragile foundations of citizenship, extremism – with its deviation from the fundamentals of sharia and Islamic law, and its claim to a monopoly on truth – is an important factor that lends its weight to the elements responsible for the political and economic emigration, which are having such a negative impact on our national societies.

This emigration is, in itself, one of the causes of Islamophobia, because it helps to reinforce the conception held in the West that it is not possible to co-exist with Islam, because Islam rejects the “other.” The West responds with the same logic: if Islam rejects the other, how can it accept us? And if, by its very nature, it refuses to accept us, why should we accept it? Consequently, the emigration of Christians from the East not only causes the collapse of the national social fabric and the loss of irreplaceable cultural, scientific and economic skills, but also harms the Islamic presence in the West and in the rest of the world, impacting negatively on relationships between Muslims and Christians in Europe, North America, Australia, Canada, etc., accentuating the feeling of rejection of Islam and fomenting discrimination against Muslims.

Islamophobia has repercussions in Muslim countries where Eastern Christians are victims, generating in turn what we may term Christianophobia. And this, as we have already affirmed, is due to the failure to distinguish between the West and Christianity. The result is an increase of extremism not only in the East, but also in the West, which further undermines Muslim-Christian relations.

In light of all this, it is not possible, or perhaps it is no longer possible, to isolate and resolve these three phenomena on an individual basis, since they have reached the point where they are interdependent. Halting this Christian exodus – a goal shared by Christians and Muslims alike – depends on the ability to curb extremism and fanaticism in Islamic societies. Arab and Eastern Christians and Muslims have the unique responsibility of maintaining Christian-Muslim relations by setting aside mutual provocations.

Christians can convey to the world an image of constructive coexistence with Muslims, but to make this possible they must be permitted to lead peaceful, constructive lives in their own countries. But this will never happen until they are accorded the rights of full citizenship. For their part, Muslims can help their fellow Christians to fulfil this role, but to do so must also be able to live peaceful, constructive lives. These aims can only be achieved by eradicating the culture of rejection, and promoting a culture of respect for individual and collective freedoms, in order to achieve full citizenship based on rights and duties.

Our Arab societies suffer from a lack of democracy and an excess of extremism and fanaticism. The absence of democracy, imposed by suffocating tyrannical regimes, contrasts with the requirements necessary to manage religiously and ethnically diverse and sectarian societies, reinforces fanaticism, and fans the flames of division and strife. Naturally, this impacts negatively on the rights of citizenship, and the religious freedoms that are implicit in such rights, which are systematically violated.

In summary, we can affirm that Eastern Christians are original citizens of the region. They do not belong to Western culture, nor are they a political extension of Europe, but must be numbered among the architects of Arab culture and the guardians of its language, as well as active participants in the development of Arab countries and defenders of their sovereignty. Their suffering is an aspect of the suffering of all of the peoples of the region. Western Islamophobia generates Christianophobia in the East, as a reaction to political and human injustices, as evidenced by the West’s support of Israel. These two negative phenomena are closely intertwined, because they augment each other. The only way out of this situation is citizenship, with respect for human rights, communities and the reinforcement of Christian-Muslim relations at all levels.

Today these relations are going through a very critical phase, which, as we have noted, is driving mass emigration and the rise of fanaticism.

Opposing this wave of extremism with “a good word” is both a right and a duty. It is a right of society and the duty of every man of faith to aspire to unity, security and peace in his society, both in Lebanon and other Arab states. In an age when fanatical slogans resound, “a good word is like a good tree, its root set firm and its branches reaching into heaven” (14:24).

To stay on the straight path
Muslim men and women perform the five daily prayers. The faithful are expected to perform at least 17 raka‘?t [prostrations performed during the ritual prayer] during prayers. As they perform each rak‘a, the faithful recite the Opening sura: “Guide us to the straight path, the path of those upon whom You have bestowed Your grace, not the path of those who earn Your anger nor of those who go astray!” Who are those on whom God has bestowed His grace? Who are those who have earned God’s anger? And who are those that go astray? From the context of the sura it is clear that those on whom God has bestowed His grace are the men who are led on the right way, and that remain within the limits set by Him. Therefore those with whom God is angry are the men who have left the right path and have overstepped his bounds, while those who wander in error are the men who have been radicalised, have abandoned the middle way and embraced excess.

Reciting the Opening sura while performing each rak‘a, at every prayer, every day, is an extremely sensible obligation, because it reminds the faithful of the importance of staying on the right path, never leaving it, in order to avoid finding oneself among those who go astray, nor rejecting it, in order to avoid being among those with whom God is angry.

Yet the Islam of the 21st century is suffering from the growing influence of those who have moved away – those with whom God is angry and those who wander in error – with respect to the community of the faithful who keep firmly to the right path.

The term “righteousness” (istiq?ma) and its derivatives occur 46 times in the noble Qur’an, in 34 suras. The rectitude that Islam demands is related to, and derives from, faith since it expresses the need to respect the values and principles of Islam. The noble Qur’an states: “Verily those who say, ‘Our Lord is God!’ and stand straight and steadfast, the angels shall descend on them” (41:30). Faith is the gateway to righteousness. Righteousness is the fruit of faith. To turn away from this path generates confusion, rebellion awakens the wrath of God.

Despite the fact that the community of true believers far outnumbers them, the voice of the fanatics is heard ever more frequently, and the quarrelsome play an increasingly negative role. These two groups presume to speak on behalf of Islam, placing false words in its mouth, and this damages the image of Islam, relations with non-Muslims and even relations with Muslims of other denominations or even the same confession!

In a sound had?th, God’s Messenger, peace be upon Him, states: “The faith of a servant is not upright until his heart is upright, and his heart is not upright until his tongue is upright.” This had?th is completed by another saying. To the question “Who is a Muslim?,” the Prophet replied: “a true Muslim is one whom the people need not fear either by word or deed.”

Christians and Muslims together in diversity
In order to overcome the crisis of confidence that has shaken and dominated Muslim-Christian relations, it is necessary to rediscover the conciliatory – and not simply tolerant – spirit that typifies Islam. This rediscovery is complementary to the rediscovery of the spirit of Christianity sanctioned by the Second Vatican Council in the declaration Nostra Aetate in 1965.

For the first time, the Council not only expressed its esteem for Muslims, who profess the uniqueness of God, honour the mother of the Messiah and the Messiah Himself, worshiping Him as a prophet, but also stated that “the differences with Muslims constitute a danger to the faith in the one God, who created all men and called them to redemption and happiness.” It set a basic principle:

“The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men. They take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honour Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.”

It is true that, in the Middle East in general, but in particular in Lebanon, even before the Second Vatican Council, Muslims and Christians shared feelings of brotherhood. However, the Council lent a theological basis to this brotherhood, so that national fraternity was joined by the brotherhood of faith in the one God. This brotherhood should not be just a slogan, but should be reflected in individual and collective attitudes and in public life. This explains the insistence of the Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in the Middle East (n 25) on the right and the duty of Christians to “participate fully in national life, working to build up their country,” specifying that “they should enjoy full citizenship and not be treated as second-class citizens or believers.”

Muslims in the Middle East, and particularly in Lebanon, have no need of Christians when practising their religious rituals and consolidating their spiritual relationship with God. Likewise, or perhaps even more so, Christians can do without Muslims; but neither can do without the other in his life. Life, in fact, as Martin Buber says, is the encounter with the other.

And this encounter does not take place between the similar, it takes place between the different.

Mohammed Sammak is adviser to the Grand Mufti of the Republic of the Lebanon and secretary of the Committee for Muslim-Christian Dialogue in the Lebanon. In 1995 he represented the Sunnite community at the Special Synod for the Lebanon convened in the Vatican by John Paul II. He is the author of various books, including Minorities between Arabness and Islam.

Watch the Incredible Procession at the Eucharistic Congress - 2 millions!

January 30, 2016
The image above, now circulating on Facebook, is remarkable. So is the video below. An estimated 2 million people took part.
The story (h/t Fr. Patrick Longalong):

Cebuanos and delegates to the 51st International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) currently being held in this city trooped to the Cebu Provincial Capitol and filled its surrounding streets to hear the Mass led by Dublin, Ireland Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.

According to Fr. Roberto Ebisa, SVD, of DYRF, Police Chief Inspector Ryan Debaras estimated the crowd that gathered for the Mass and procession to be nearly 2 million. Streets leading to the Capitol were closed to make way for the millions of people joining in the international Catholic gathering dubbed as the “World Youth Day of adult Catholics”. Candle-bearing delegates and pilgrims from Cebu and around the world chanted hymns and prayers as the carriage carrying the monstrance made its way slowly from the Capitol through Osmeña Boulevard towards Plaza Independencia while a choir led in the chanting of the Litany of the Saints and other hymns. 
 

In his homily, Martin reminded the people that “the Church became present through the Eucharist, through the Holy Communion.” No Eucharist, no Church “There is no Church without the Eucharist. The Eucharist constructs the Church,” he said. Martin was joined at the makeshift altar by Papal legate Charles Maung Cardinal Bo, Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations Archbishop Bernardino Auza, and president of the Pontifical Committee on IECs Archbishop Piero Marini as well as hundreds of bishops and priests.

The Primate of Ireland said Christians need to realize that Christ came to us as a gift and not as someone “we construct ourselves.” He then urged Catholics to model their lives as a celebration of the mystery of the life and love of Jesus Christ. “We are called to understand, love and assimilate the very love of Jesus… Our lives too must be offered in sacrifice.” Martin, who is archbishop of the last diocese to host the IEC said that the Christian community, a “Eucharistic community”, must always be a caring one. Special monstrance Last Thursday, the Cebu provincial government declared no work at the Capitol on Friday via its official social media accounts to give way for the preparations for the Holy Mass and the Eucharistic procession.

The monstrance, specially designed for the IEC, was placed on a pedestal in an open-top truck decked with flowers. Thousands followed the procession while others waited at the sides, carrying lighted candles or praying the rosary.

Fourth degree Knights of Columbus in full Honor Guard regalia led the procession followed by women in white veils and the rest of the crowd.

On Sunday, millions are expected to attend the Statio Orbis Mass (Latin for “Stations of the World”) or Concluding Mass of the 51st IEC at the South Road Properties. The term was first used to describe the concluding celebration of the 37th IEC in Munich, Germany in 1960. The phrase came to refer to the
 

The Catholic Priest Who Found Jesus Christ While Among the Muslims
At great risk, Fr. Humblot lived for years in Iran, sharing the Gospel and serving the poor
 

James Davis
January 31, 2016 January 31, 2016

One of the first times Father Humblot came into contact with Muslims was seeing the shadow of a “terrorist” during the war in Algeria. He was serving at the time in the French contingent, and the figure was at the end of his gun. He knew he should shoot, but he chose not to pull the trigger and withdrew on tiptoe. The enemy did not shoot either. When he was still a seminarian, he decided to devote his life to the service of Muslims. He became a missionary priest in the Prado association.

While he finished studying theology in Beirut in the early 60s, Father Humblot chose to live in the slum which adjoined the city dump. His neighbors, Lebanese Shiites of southern Lebanon or Syria, were dockers or worked sorting garbage. Separated from them by a simple sheet of cardboard, he was admitted into this community of poor Muslims and he shared their work, either in the middle of the city dump or as a longshoreman at the port. His goal was to help seminarians and young priests who wanted to serve the poor not only to contemplate the poverty of Jesus Christ but to share for a few days that of the poor.

“I gave the baby bottle”
He established a relationship of trust with his neighbors, who knew he was a Catholic priest: “My chapel was out in the open, everyone could see it,” he recalls. One night, the man in the house just next to his called for help: his wife had left and he did not know how to feed the baby as she had been breast-feeding … The priest then boiled a bottle and made a baby bottle out of it. And this is how we could see a French priest giving a small Muslim his milk between two cardboard boxes in a Beirut slum!

Koran Reading
When it rained, the inhabitants of the slum met during the night in each other’s homes, to avoid going out in the muddy streets. They listened to the Koran, gathered around the best reader. Father Humblot was chosen to read, resulting in another strange scene: a Catholic priest reciting suras, especially that of “Maryam,” that he explained to his audience in the light of the Gospels. Two sheiks got wind of the priest’s activities and wanted to stop them, but they were driven out by Father Humblot’s neighbors who were accustomed to “their” priest.

At the end of his stay, he learned that his activities and his complicity with the local population earned him the distrust of some Muslims, but his neighbors protected him during the June 1968 war with Israel. “During many of my journeys, I was followed by two neighbors who discreetly ensured my protection! I knew nothing at the time. ”

No animosity
“I never felt any animosity on the part of the Muslims that I lived with,” says the priest, who spent 45 years in Iran. His troubles came from the political police, who looked askance at his activities as a missionary priest in Tehran and who threatened him to the point that his bishop urged him to leave five years ago. Since 1969, after learning the language, he did something scandalous: he taught Muslims who wanted to convert to Christianity — and there are many of them — despite the risks!

His neighbors knew it but never reproached him for it. “Once, during the Islamic Revolution, in the volatile atmosphere you can imagine, a group of youths attacked me when I had gone out to shop at the local grocer, “This is an American! Let’s get him!”

I told them I was French. Their answer was: “Oh yes, since the Imam Khomeini took refuge in France, all foreigners are French!”

When we got to the grocer’s who knew me, we continued to debate and finally the leader of the group offered me a cigarette, a Marlboro! My immediate response was: “I do not smoke American … Take one of these.” And I took an Iranian cigarette out of my pocket. The whole gang burst out laughing and we parted friends. ”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church translated by ayatollahs
Later, the priest was invited to the holy city of Qom where the ayatollahs and other Shiite leaders are trained. A group of Muslim clerics asked him to check their translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. When Father asked why they had translated it, they replied: “Because we want to present each religion with the official texts of the religion, not according to what we think.”

In the discussion that followed, the Muslim clerics questioned him. “What is the greatest commandment in Christianity?” Father Humblot answered that there was only one commandment: Love, which encompasses all things.” And off we go into a discussion on this one God who is love, not only because He loves us, but because He is not remote, solitary and dangerous, overseeing and judging sinners …” he recalls.
This catechism was printed up but then destroyed by the political and religious police but then reprinted on the occasion of the election of the new president. It is on sale in bookstores in Tehran and the Father often used it to answer catechumens’ questions.

“Thanks to the Muslims, I am aware that Jesus is the Son of God”
Father Humblot continues his dialogue now from Paris through the Internet with Muslims who, in Iran, Afghanistan and Europe wish to convert to Christianity, and receives touching testimonies of friendship like that of Amin, an Iranian, who wrote: “I am a Muslim but I like the Catholics because they are respectful of the person and preach love.” Father Humblot gives thanks to God for having “converted him to Jesus Christ through the Muslims’ attitude.”
He explains: “Raised in a very Christian family, I loved the gospel and considered Jesus as my best friend. Until the day when, in the leper colony where often the very sick and suffering prayed and fasted with great submission to the will of God Almighty, I discovered adoration and prostration before Jesus, as not only my friend but also the Son of God. ”

Translated the French by Liliane Stevenson.

Ten Ways to Fall in Love with the Eucharist
Fr. Ed Broom, OMV

The saints are the mad-lovers of Jesus; they were on earth and now are in heaven loving God for all eternity.  In this article, we will give a list of what some saints have said in an excess of love for the most Holy Eucharist. Then we will give ten keys to unlock the treasure-case of gems to love the Eucharist more in our lives! Let us read and meditate on the fire of the saints and the Eucharist:

• “Holy Communion is the shortest and the safest way to Heaven.” (St. Pius X)
• “If the angels could be jealous of men, they would be for one reason: Holy Communion.” (St. Maximilian Kolbe)
• “In one day the Eucharist will make you produce more for the glory of God than a whole lifetime without it.” (St. Peter Julian Eymard)
• “How I love the feasts!… I especially loved the processions in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. What a joy it was for me to throw flowers beneath the feet of God!… I was never so happy as when I saw my roses touch the sacred Monstrance.” (St. Therese the Little Flower)
• “When you look at the Crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.” (Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
• “From the Eucharist comes strength to live the Christian life and zeal to share that life with others.”  (St. John Paul II)
• “This is the bread of everlasting life which supports the substance of your soul.” (St. Ambrose)
• “The longer you stay away from Communion, the more your soul will be weak, and in the end you will become dangerously indifferent.”  (St. John Bosco)
• “The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.” (St. Thomas Aquinas)

Faith.

Beg the Lord for a greater faith in the sublime mystery of the most Holy Eucharist.   Let us say with the Apostles Saint Thomas:  “My Lord and my God.” Let us also so the prayer of the man of the Gospel: “Lord I believe but strengthen my faith!”

Visit.

Make it a habit to visit the most Blessed Sacrament as often as is possible.  Hopefully when we die Jesus will not reproach us with these words: “Whenever I see a church I stop to make a visit so that when I die the Lord will not say:  “Who is it!”  Friends meet to chat, talk, and enjoy each other’s company; so should we, in visiting and talking frequently to Jesus.

Spiritual Communion.

Highly recommended by St. Alphonsus Liguouri as well as Pope Benedict XVI in his document “Sacramentum Caritatis” is the frequent practice of the Spiritual Communion.   It can be done in a simple manner and as often as your heart desires.   You can say the simple prayer:  “Jesus I believe that you are truly present in the Tabernacle in your Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Now I cannot receive you sacramentally but come at least spiritually into my heart.”  Then enter into your heart and thank, praise and love the Lord who has come spiritually into your soul.  This can fan the flame of love for our Eucharistic Lord.

Read John 6.

The Gospel of John chapter six has three parts: Jesus multiples the loaves, walks on water, and then He gives a sublime discourse related to the Eucharist; actually it is a Eucharistic prophecy.   Best known as the “Bread of life discourse”, Jesus promises to give us the Bread of Life.  Also Jesus points out in no unclear terms that our immortal salvation depends upon our eating His Body and drinking His Blood, which obviously refers to Holy Communion.  Read and meditate this powerful chapter!

Fifteen Minutes.

Years ago there was published a small booklet with the title “The fifteen minutes”.  It is a little gem where Jesus encourages the reader to enter into simple but profound conversation with Him. Basically Jesus wants to be our Best Friend and challenges us to open up the secret mysteries of our heart to Him and only He can truly understand the inner secrets, wounds and mysteries in our heart.   Read and pray through this booklet if possible in front of the Blessed Sacrament!

Holy Hour.

Get into the habit of making a daily Holy Hour in front of the most Blessed Sacrament. It will transform your life if you persevere in the practice.  The Great Servant of God, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who made his Holy Hour faithfully for more than fifty years, called it THE HOUR OF POWER!

Adorn and Embellish Churches & the Eucharist.

The woman lavished her expensive nard on the feet of Jesus; she wept and her tears came pouring forth on the feet of Jesus; finally she wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair (Lk. 7:36-50).   Fulton Sheen points out that this is symbolic of the gestures of love and attention we should manifest in the way we adorn, embellish and beautify the Churches and tabernacles where Jesus abides.

Known for his spirit of penance, fasting, and sacrifice, the Cure of Ars would travel long distances and expend big sums of money to purchase the best for his little Church. Why? For the simple reason that Jesus the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords abides in the tabernacle and descends from heaven in the hands of the priest in every consecrated Host. “O come let us adore Him!”

Holy Mass and Holy Communion.

Of course the greatest action in the whole universe is the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The greatest gesture any human being can accomplish is to assist at Mass and to receive Holy Communion with faith, devotion, reverence and awe but especially with a passionate love.   Whenever possible, go to daily Mass. Arrive early to prepare yourself. Offer your own private intentions. Participate in Holy Mass fully, actively and consciously.   Receive Holy Communion as if it were your first Holy Communion, last Holy Communion and only Holy Communion. Be exceedingly thankful for your faith in such a sublime and august mystery!   Do not rush out of the Church after Mass, as if your pants were on fire!  Rather, spend some time after Holy Mass to render abundant thanks to Jesus for such a sublime gift. Actually the word “Eucharist” means THANKSGIVING!   What a sublime gift, free of charge. The only condition is lively faith and a heart overflowing with love for Jesus the greatest of all lovers!

A.C.T.S.

Remember the four principal ends or purpose of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—A.C.T.S…

A—stands for adoration.  The primary purpose of Holy Mass is to offer adoration to God the Father, by the offering of Jesus the Victim and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

C—stands for contrition.  Our hearts should be contrite and humble and repentant for our many sins. It is a great practice to offer our Mass and Holy Communion in reparation for our sins, the sin of our families as well as in reparation for the sins of the whole world.  “For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

T—stands for thanksgiving.  Everything that we have in this life—with the exception of our own sins—is a pure gift from God. Therefore we should be overflowing and abounding in the thanksgiving. “With the Psalmist let us pray: “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; his love endures forever.”

S—Stands for supplication; in other words we should offer prayers of fervent intercession and petition for the many needs of the world: the world at large, the Church, the conversion of sinners, the sick, the dying, our own personal family needs, the souls in purgatory, and much more….

Eucharistic Missionary.

As Mary received Jesus in the Annunciation and promptly and quickly brought Jesus to her cousin Elizabeth, so should we bring Jesus to others, and others to Jesus.   This can be done in a very concrete manner by encouraging Catholic lost sheep wandering in the wilderness back to the fold.  The second largest religious group in the United States are non-practicing Catholics.

Find the time, manner, effort and initiative to invite some lost soul back to Church. Hopefully he or she can make a good confession and return to the reception of Holy Communion and to the loving embrace of God the Father. All this might take place if you simply trust God and take the initiative to welcome them back! God is so loving and good!  Share the Good News to the entire world!
 

Archbishop of Guwahati: In Asia religion is not dying, the faithful take strength from the Eucharist

INDIA – PHILIPPINES - AsiaNews

Mgr Menamparampil is among the speakers at the International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu, Philippines. He was also a conflict mediator between various ethnic groups. He told AsiaNews about the value of the Congress for the Catholic Church in Asia and how people can bear witness the Gospel today, even amid tensions and violence of those who "hate us." "with the same pain in our hearts that we descend to our depths during a Eucharistic adoration."

Mumbai (AsiaNews) – “In Asia, prayer gatherings draw larger crowds than sports events or entertainments of any sort. This is the best answer to militant atheists who keep arguing that religion is dying out. At a massive prayer-event the rich and the poor become equal”, says Mgr Thomas Menamparampil, Archbishop of Guwahati and Apostolic Administrator of Jowai in India, speaking about the 51st International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu. The Archbishop acted as mediator in the conflict between the various ethnic groups and declares that “silent worship is just what Asians value most in religion” and for it “Eucharistic adoration breathes a sense of mystery.”

“We would best witness to the Gospel in Asia”, says, “if we should be able enter into the mental state of Jesus who felt abandoned as he was close to his death in order to understand the inner agony of those who feel abandoned by society, even by their families and intimates in certain painful contexts.  The cry of the poor is the cry of Jesus on the Cross”.
The role od dialogue with religions, which it doesn’t mean sit together to have “a cup of the”, but “it is ongoing relationship, mutual education, stimulating cooperation.” The Christian Inculturation should not become “like an artificial face-makeup, but it is the life-giving touch of Christ.” Archbishop Menamparampil’s interview with AsiaNews follows:

Excellency, what is the meaning of the International Eucharistic Congress for the Church in Asia?

Silent worship is just what Asians value most in religion. Eucharistic adoration makes profound meaning for them as it breathes a sense of mystery. It stands for depth in their understanding. The external ceremonies and solemnity are less important in their perception. What is Important is to delve behind the meaning of those rituals.

For believing Asians, all activities derive their strength and motivation from their relationship with the Ultimate. Mahatma Gandhi began the more serious part of his political career in an Ashram with regular habits of prayer. When he taught nonviolence from a prayer context it appealed to the nation. With the tools of nonviolence sharpened, he could go ahead more confidently into his struggle for his country's independence.

How do we witness to the Gospel in Asia in our times?

I think we would best witness to the Gospel in Asia when we join the rest of local society in seeking to address the problems of the day. "We also evangelise when we attempt to confront the various challenges which can arise (EG 61)," says Pope Francis.

Addressing a human need with a sense of commitment is the primary duty for a Christian. "You yourselves give them something to eat," said Jesus to his disciples who wanted to withdraw before an actual human need. I would not limit this way of addressing the needs of the poor to merely to food and drink, medicine and blankets; but also to encouraging words and supportive fellowship, to contextual wisdom and a vision for the future, reassuring forgiveness and dreams that people consider impossible.

The sigh of the helpless is closely linked to the loud "groans and tears" (Heb 5:7) of Jesus in Gethsemane. We should be able to keep close to him in his agony in the anguish of deprived slum dwellers, marginalised ethnic groups, exploited Dalit villagers; in the uncertainties of mentally confused young people.   We should be able enter into the mental state of Jesus who felt abandoned as he was close to his death in order to understand the inner agony of those who feel abandoned by society, even by their families and intimates in certain painful contexts.  The cry of the poor is the cry of Jesus on the Cross.
I would say the best evangelisers today are those who have developed the skill of building bridges to individuals and communities, not necessarily those who are over-confident about their message and their methods, or those who speak from a moral high ground, or are specialised in denouncing others. The best missionaries are those who know how to relate with cultures, communities, heritages,  and collective identities with intelligence; and how to deal with resentful individuals, inward-looking ethnic groups, angered societies, vengeful radicals, with attention, respect and sensitivity. The best evangelisers are those who accept the most pressing problems of the day as the starting for sharing a relevant message, suggesting realistic solutions, and sustaining hope when all human solutions fail. There they have a chance to point beyond!

What would you say about dialogue with religions?

The problem with us is that we seem to limit Dialogue to an academic exercise. How many dialogue sessions end up as a ritual, concluding with a cup of tea! But if the dialogue is about the most pressing problems of society at a given moment, it comes to life.  Each one draws strength from his/her own source of inspiration, but its worth is weighed according to its relevance to the anxiety they share. One's words acquire convincing power in proportion to their applicability to the context. Even the best proposals may be rejected, but the sense of what is right remains, and it may acquired greater respectability when the situation makes its rightness evident.  But this is just one aspect dialogue. In fact, dialogue is ongoing relationship, it is mutual education, it is stimulating cooperation. It is about creating a sense co-belonging. In these times of mutual exclusion, mild hostility, and even absolute hatred between communities, religious groups and civilizational blocs, dialogue of respect and relationship is just what is needed.  In a highly secularized, market-driven, value-neutral, materialistic world, sincere followers of various religious traditions must come together and inspire and help each other.

Religious dialogue ascends to new heights when it concerns itself with actual religious experiences. Everyone is deeply edified when he/she hears the description of an actual religious experience in another tradition. An encounter with the divine is life-transforming. In this era of vanishing and values and absence of moral convictions, we seek assistance from persons of every persuasion to help. Jesus somehow interests more people than we think, if only his real face is made manifest.

Mgr Menamparampil, what do you think about the ongoing process of Inculturation among Asian tribal cultures?

I am cautious about speaking on Inculturation as a sort of surgical operation or genetic engineering. I would consider it rather as a happy encounter between two sets of human experiences. The historical and social experiences of a particular tribe will have given shape to an identity to a community with its own worldview and values. If any community feels its identity or heritage threatened, it goes on the defensive. Today it is happening all over the world. If a community perceives an increase of threat, its defence may take a radical shape. Christian Inculturation should not become something like an artificial face-makeup or a decorative adaptation. It is the life-giving touch of Christ, a stimulating encounter with his message, where what is best in a tradition begins to flower in a new and amazing way. If there are areas of self-correction or instances of sharing elements from other faith-communities, these can only be in the context of the growth of the community in keeping with its original genius. That evangeliser helps best who knows how to bring to life what is best in a community's values and traditions.

And what do you say about the missionary’s commitment to the poor?

My answer is simple: when you run short of generosity, draw close to the poor. Their needs will stir in your generosity. They will multiply your energies. They will empower you to do amazing things. No wonder, Mother Teresa used to say, "The poor are our teachers."  St. Vincent de Paul had some similar expression. In an earlier question I had already spoken about the various needs of the poor. Let me add one more dimension. I have a feeling that those who are poorest are those who are most distant from God. In this year of mercy, we come close them and help them to rediscover their way to God.

And how do you deal with huge social problems?

Let me add a new category: those who oppose us, hate our beliefs and values, and harass and persecute us beyond endurance. I agree that we have every right to put the entire strength of law and the weight of public opinion in self defence. Any yet we have the duty to identify ourselves with them too. As the victim is our brother/sister, so is the aggressor. It is thinking about him that Christ cried and shed tears in the Garden and writhed in pain on the cross. It is with the same pain in our hearts that we descend to our depths during a Eucharistic adoration. If these things do not form a part of our inner struggle, our Eucharistic devotion lacks depth.

The powers of evil are defeated only when they are driven out of the inner world of our brother/sister. Historic wounds cannot be healed by immediate persuasion. But putting our weight on the path of persuasion, we hasten the coming of the Kingdom. I am sure many will not agree with me. These are beyond practical possibilities, but our evangelisation becomes convincing only when people see that we know how to look beyond the horizon, that we are people of faith, that ultimate realities of which we speak are are living force with us. Let us keep believing in the impossible and striving towards it as a witness to our faith

Finally, does the Congress push forward the mission of the Christians in Asia?

In Asia, prayer gatherings draw larger crowds than sports events or entertainments of any sort. This is the best answer to militant atheists who keep arguing that religion is dying out. At a massive prayer-event the rich and the poor become equal. There they recharge their energies for another round of generous service. In this sense, the International Eucharistic Congress in the Philippines can help to revive the faith of the Catholics in that country and motivate all who gather there to return home and bear witness to their faith with redoubled spiritual strength.

Non-Christians queue to cross Bandra Holy Door (Photo)

INDIA
Nirmala Carvalho

Pilgrims to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount kneel in front of the priest and ask to confess. Msgr. Nereus Rodrigues is rector of the Basilica, where Card. Gracias opened the Holy Door. The bishop has set up panels that draw attention to the corporal works of mercy. The Holy Door decorated with messages. Thousands of pilgrims visiting.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Since the Holy Door of Mercy was opened in the basilica of Our Lady of the Mount in Bandra (Mumbai), Maharashtra, it has attracted thousands of Christians and faithful of other religions. "Everyone is eager to receive the sacrament of reconciliation," says Msgr. Nereus Rodrigues, rector of the basilica, who cares for many pilgrims who arrive every day from dawn to dusk, along with the vice rector Fr. Anaiceto. The prelate adds: "Many Christians come here, stand in line, then kneel in front of the priest and sit in the confessional. Speaking softly, asking for the forgiveness of their sins".

Msgr. Nereus is confident that many people of different faiths come to the Church throughout the year. But now, with the opening of the Jubilee Door, the church is frequented by a growing number of devotees.

Outside the basilica, in the area reserved to the oratory (see photo), the bishop installed panels that draw your attention to the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, underlined by Pope Francis for this Jubilee. According to Msgr. Nereus, "in this way, through the written warnings, pilgrims can read, understand and then implement the works of mercy."

Other panels were placed along the sides of the front entrance to the basilica. Msgr. Nereus said: "We want the faithful to celebrate the Jubilee of mercy even before entering the church. At the entrance there are two large panels that sway in the wind: one shows the logo of the extraordinary Holy Year, the other is the image of the prodigal son, with an explanation by Pope Francis. "

Moreover, the same Holy Door is decorated with the message: "On one side the inscription 'Mary conceived without sin'. The other an invocation for the Jubilee. "
 

At the Milk Grotto, 'evidence that there is God' Couples struggling with fertility attribute ‘miracle babies’ to where Mary supposedly first nursed Jesus

Pilgrims experiencing fertility issues flock to the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem. Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock
12/17/2015

Judith Sudilovsky OSV Newsweekly

At the Milk Grotto, 'evidence that there is God' Pilgrims experiencing fertility issues flock to the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem. Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock
Tucked away behind Nativity Square, not far from the Church of the Nativity that, according to Christian tradition, marks the spot where Jesus was born in the manger, is the Milk Grotto. This is the location where, according to another tradition, Mary nursed the Infant Jesus and where a few drops of her milk fell onto the rocks, turning the soft limestone from its original yellowish-brown hue to a creamy white.
In a tradition dating back centuries — possibly even to the earliest Christians — women and couples who are unable to conceive have come to this grotto to pray to Mary, in hopes that her intercession will bless them with a baby.

Keeping records

Today, pilgrims can take home tiny packets of white powder from the grotto, and together, the couple for 40 days follows a devotion that includes drinking small amounts of the powder and saying a prayer. The bags are sold at a symbolic cost but can only be purchased at the grotto since the requests would be overwhelming to manage.In the 12 years since Brother Lawrence Bode, the Franciscan caretaker of the shrine, has been keeping records, there have been about 4,000 letters from couples attributing their miracle babies to the “milk powder.” Brother Lawrence estimates that there have been twice as many babies born whose parents have not written him. He keeps all the letters and pictures in black and white three-ring binders and is now on his 10th binder. The latest babies include a pair of twins.

“(Last week), I went to the post office box and there were about 10 baby pictures,” Brother Lawrence said. “People pray for healing so they can have a baby and become a mother. Every two days, we have a baby. It is a wonderful place to work, bringing babies from all over the world. It is such tangible evidence to the miracle. The letters are the testimony.” Indeed, the letters and pictures in the binders and the ones decorating almost two walls of his small office next to the shrine come from every corner of the world, including Brazil, Argentina, India, the Philippines, Mexico, the United States, Canada, Germany, Sri Lanka, Bermuda, Ireland and Spain. More recently, Brother Lawrence said, he has even been receiving letters from Taiwan and China.

Miraculous evidence

Each letter attests to the difficulty the couples had in conceiving. One woman and her husband wrote from India that they had struggled to conceive for as long as 20 years. The husband wrote about their immense joy when their baby girl was born after they had followed the devotion. An Episcopal pastor from the United States wrote about the six years he and his wife were trying to conceive and sent a picture of him proudly carrying his newborn baby in a carrier on his chest. From Argentina, a young woman wrote about the birth of her daughter after 10 months of trying to conceive. Two local Palestinian couples sent in pictures of their miracle babies: One couple had triplets, and the other quadruplets.

Brother Lawrence says he often jokes with couples to be careful how much of the powder they take because that is what can happen. But in all seriousness, he says he never asks the couples if they are also undergoing fertility treatments but acknowledges that very well may also be the case. Their prayers and faith in the devotion may help the process along, he said. Some letters attribute other miracles, such as healing from cancer, blindness and paralysis to the “milk powder” as well.

“It is a wonderful feeling to know that there is hope for couples, people who are sick, even people who are losing faith. I pray for the people who take this devotion every day of my life,” said Brother Lawrence. “This is evidence that there is God. We are talking about miracles. In these days, you talk about miracles and people don’t believe.” Some people, such as the parents of the quadruplets and the parents of a girl from a northern Galilee village who was in a coma, have brought their children back to the shrine to give thanks, Father Lawrence said.

Giving hope

Long devoted to the Virgin Mary even before he went into religious life, Brother Lawrence said his devotion has grown threefold since he joined his order.
“There are a certain number of prayers I have to pray to the Virgin Mary every day or I am not a happy person,” he smiled, adding: “We put our faith in Jesus. We put our faith in his mother.” In several spots in the grotto, ceiling holes the width of a finger are evident where, over the years, people have scraped bits of the powder to take home. Indeed, Brother Lawrence says, they must be vigilant of people who try to scrape the powder from the ceiling. Just recently, he said, a visitor was attempting to carve out hunks of the stone with an umbrella.

The structure was renovated two years ago, removing centuries’ old soot from the ceiling and, to accommodate bigger pilgrim groups, adding a larger upper chapel on top of the older chapel, which was built over the grotto around the year 385. He noted that at some point during earlier renovations, a huge deposit of the powder was put into storage, which is what is today offered to the faithful who come to the shrine. Brother Lawrence said he believes there is enough to “last at least 100 years.”

“This gives the people hope. It is good that there is hope,” said Svetlana Rezinovski, a tour guide who came by for the second time in two days to buy numerous packets for members of her group from Moldova. “Orthodox Christians also come to ask for (Mary’s) help, too.”

As Christians are celebrating the birth of Jesus during the Christmas season, Brother Lawrence says he celebrates the birth every day as babies from all over the world are born with what he believes is the intercession of Mary using the grotto’s “milk powder.” On Jan. 1, a special Mass in honor of Mary is celebrated at St. Catherine Cathedral, which is adjacent to the Church of the Nativity. Several hundred faithful follow in a procession with song and prayer, carrying an icon of the Virgin Mary to the Milk Grotto, where they are blessed by a priest.

“Jesus tells us that if we have the faith of a mustard seed, we can move the mountain,” Brother Lawrence said. “Miracles happen with people’s faith. This is not magic. It has to do with a person’s faith and belief.”

Judith Sudilovsky writes from Jerusalem.
 

The number of Christian martyrs has tripled in two years.

Cross of the Martyrs.

Washington D.C., Jan 15, 2016 / 04:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In 2013, there were some 2,100 Christians killed for faith-related reasons across the globe. Last year, that number rose to at least 7,100, according to a recent report from an advocacy group.

“The persecution of Christians is getting worse – in every region in which we work – and it’s getting worse fast,” Lisa Pearce, CEO of Open Doors UK and Ireland, said in the group’s 2016 report. “Many countries have dropped down the list, not because persecution there is decreasing, but simply because others are getting worse faster. And it wasn’t good three years ago.” “We can and must be strenuous in protecting Christians and all others facing persecution for their faith,” Pearce added.
Open Doors has worked to help persecuted Christians for over 60 years. It was founded by a Dutchman known as Brother Andrew. He smuggled Bibles into Eastern Europe at a time when communist regimes severely restricted Christianity and other religions. The organization works in 60 countries. Each year, it compiles instances of anti-Christian persecution and evaluates the global situation.

The latest report found that anti-Christian persecution reached a new peak in 2015, with thousands more people killed for faith-related reasons. About 4,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria, over 1,200 in the Central African and over 700 in Chad throughout 2015. In addition, over 2,400 churches were attacked or shut down for faith-related reasons, the Open Doors report said.
Open Doors’ World Watch List evaluates Christian persecution in the world’s countries and ranks the worst 50. The worst 10 countries on the 2016 list are North Korea, Iraq, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iran and Libya. North Korea, a communist state, is still the country where it is most difficult to be a Christian, the group found. It has about 300,000 Christians in a population of 24.5 million. The country has headed Open Doors’ watch list for 14 years. News from the isolated country is difficult to confirm. However, Open Doors said the country’s leadership sees Christianity as “deeply Western and despicable.”

“Christians try to hide their faith as far as possible to avoid arrest and being sent to a labor camp. Thus, being Christian has to be a well-protected secret, even within families, and most parents refrain from introducing their children to the Christian faith in order to make sure that nothing slips their tongue when they are asked.”

In Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled their homes for fear of violence, especially from ISIS. “Iraq has suffered from years of structural uncertainty, conflict and instability under a government incapable of enforcing the rule of law and providing a minimum of security,” Open Doors said. In Eritrea, there are about 2.5 million Christians out of a population of 6.7 million.  “The Eritrean regime is absolutely authoritarian and intolerant towards any form of association, dissent and free expression,” Open Doors commented.
The government aims to control all religious institutions and has deposed the Eritrean Orthodox Patriarch. The country has consistently supported the rise of radical Islam in the region, including arming the Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab.
The Open Doors watch list cited several trends worsening anti-Christian persecution.

These trends include the expansion of self-styled Islamic caliphates, who now operate across international borders. Governments who fear Islamic extremism respond by working to increase nationalist sentiment or they tighten rules and increase surveillance over religious expression. In addition, some Muslims are becoming stricter out of fear of extremist takeovers or ISIS sleeper groups.

According to the report, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia were the fastest growing areas of persecution. More states suffer lawlessness, which means minorities there suffer more violence. Religious extremism, including Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist extremism, is the greatest source of anti-Christian persecution. The report blamed tribal antagonism as well as churches that do not want to recognize Christians of other denominations.

Mexico ranks 40th on the list, while Colombia ranks 46th. They are the only countries in the Americas to appear on the list. Open Doors said that drug trafficking is largely at the root of anti-Christian persecution in Latin America. Local church leaders are often the only ones who will oppose drug traffickers, but then become targets for violence and extortion.

“There is always hope, and yet we are in unmarked territory – the pace and scale of persecution of Christians is unprecedented and growing fast.  We should not expect that to change unless we are part of changing the situation,” Pearce said.

She found hope in areas where Christian churches grow despite persecution. In countries like Syria, Christian communities care for their Muslim neighbors. In places like Mandera, Kenya, Muslims opposed anti-Christian attackers, saying, “You kill all of us or none of us.”

Slovenia rejects same-sex marriage in referendum

Even the Pope got involved
Dec 21st 2015,

MORE THAN 60% of Slovenian voters opposed legalising gay marriage in a referendum marked by low turnout, according to near-complete results from the electoral commission. The outcome marked a setback for gay rights activists who had hoped to see the largely Catholic nation become Europe’s first ex-communist country to give same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt. With 99.9% of ballots counted, 63.48% of voters said ‘no’ to approving the legislation, which already passed in parliament earlier this year. More than 1.7 million people were registered to vote on an issue that has stoked heated debate in the former Yugoslav republic, but turnout was low at just 36.18%. For the outcome to be legally valid, opponents of the law needed to muster the support of at least 20% of registered voters — the equivalent of at least 342,000 votes. They ended up garnering 391,818, the commission said.

According to Ljudmila Novak, a senior member of the conservative Nova Slovenija party, said the “message is clear”. “We need to protect the rights of children,” she said. “We agree with providing the appropriate rights for homosexuals, while preserving the family as the primary environment for children.” In March, parliament approved legislation redefining marriage as a “union of two” instead of a “union of a man and a woman”, granting homosexual couples the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts, including the right to adopt children. But opponents immediately launched a campaign to reverse the changes, meaning the legislation never came into force and no same-sex couples were able to tie the knot. A group called “Children Are At Stake” managed to gather the 40,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum. Even Pope Francis waded in, urging Slovenians to defend traditional family values.
He said last week he encouraged “everyone, especially those with public responsibility, to support the family, a structural reference point for the life of society”.

A “miracle” at the Holy Door in Zhengding: 10,000 underground Catholics celebrate the Jubilee without arrests

CHINA, Dec. 15, 2015–”It’s a miracle! It is protection from Heaven!” said some Catholics from the underground community in Zhengding (Hebei) after what happened on Sunday, December 13.

About 10,000 faithful from Zhengding, Lingshou, Beijing, and Baoding had gathered outside the cathedral (pictured) to celebrate the beginning of the Jubilee and the opening of the Holy Door. The “miracle” is that police, which is always present in front of the church, did nothing to prevent the event and did not arrest anyone. (Perhaps) an even greater miracle was the fact that the underground bishop led the liturgy, which lasted from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm.

Mgr Julius Jia Zhiguo, who is not recognized by the government, has been under house arrest for years for refusing to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), and for remaining loyal to the pope. The CPCA is a Communist Party agency whose aim is to establish a Catholic Church independent from the pope. Mgr Jia Zhiguo lives near Zhengding cathedral and is monitored day and night. He is often taken away for a week or two of “holiday” – i.e. classes of indoctrination and brainwashing – to convince him to join the CPCA.

Despite this, “it is amazing,” said a nun, “that so many people could gather for so long and no one was arrested. It is likely that there were plainclothes police mingled with the crowd, but nothing happened.” A procession followed by a series of readings from Misericordiae Vultus, Pope Francis’ Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee of Mercy, preceded the solemn opening of the Holy Door in Zhengding. A single Eucharistic ceremony followed the door opening.

For years, the Chinese government has been trying to eliminate unregistered underground communities, whose “crime” is that of engaging in unsupervised religious activities. For this reason, priests involved in underground services are often imprisoned. In recent months, many underground priests and bishops have come under strong pressure to join the CPCA, through enticements and offers of money. Despite the constant monitoring to which he is subjected, Mgr Jia Zhiguo is well liked by the police as well as the population. For a long time, he hosted at his residence about 200 abandoned children and disabled people, taking care of them along with some nuns and faithful. (AsiaNews)

WATCH The Amazing Copts Filled With Joy For The 21 Martyred Copts

By Shoebat Foundation on February 20, 2015 in General, Featured
By Walid Shoebat 

Imagine thanking the killers of two of your brothers who were beheaded and video taped for the whole world to watch the barberic cruelty. Yet, this is exactly what the brother of two of the 21 Coptic Christians did when ISIS murdered both of them in Libya last week. With amazing grace comes amazing faith. Speaking on a live prayer and worship programme Beshir Kamel said that he was proud of his brothers Bishoy Estafanos Kamel (25) and Samuel Estafanos Kamel (23) because they were “a badge of honour to Christianity”.

Harrowing scenes of the murders have been seen around the world. The last words of some of those killed were “Ya Rabbi Yasou” (My Lord Jesus Christ).

The amazing faith of Beshir Kamel even gave thanks, not just to God and Christ, but also to ISIS for not editing out the men’s declaration of belief in Christ because he said this had strengthened not only his own faith but the families of the ex-patriate workers were “congratulating one another” and not in despair: “We are proud to have this number of people from our village who have become martyrs,” he told the programme.

Kamel expressed the story of the Copts: “Since the Roman era, Christians have been martyred and have learned to handle everything that comes our way. This only makes us stronger in our faith because the Bible told us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us.”

But such faith is not void of strength and the view that militarism is also necessary. Kamel welcomed the air strikes launched in response by the Egyptian government, saying: “Only the length of the time period when we didn’t know where they were justified the air strikes for us. If they had been martyred on the same day they were kidnapped, we wouldn’t have asked for any retaliation.”

Asked by host Maher Fayez what he would say if he were asked to forgive ISIS, he related what his mother said she would do if she saw one of the men who killed her son. “My mother, an uneducated woman in her sixties, said she would ask [him] to enter her house and ask God to open his eyes because he was the reason her son entered the kingdom of heaven.”

And if you think this is only him. Shoebat.com has reviewed interviews of several family members of the martyred Copts and pretty much all of them, young and old were so glad at the news.

For example, Habib Lam’i the uncle of one of the martyrs Samuel, as much as the interviewer asks him questions, his response always divert to “we thank Christ so much for they are absent from the body and present with Christ”. Both the interviewer and the family are in complete joy.

“I sent congratulations and not condolences to the families of the martyrs”.

Samuel had two boys and a girl.
“When we saw the video we were filled with joy. They were like lions, none of them left their faith. We thank God.” “we are so glad. They are with Christ. We thank the Lord”. “They went to the eternal joy. We were tired when we did not know, but we were filled with joy when we found out they were heroic”.

And just as Kamel who invited to pray for his brothers’ killers, Beshir prayed: “Dear God, please open their eyes to be saved and to quit their ignorance and the wrong teachings they were taught.” Lam’i said “It is as if Christ has opened the heavens for them and He said ‘come up hither’ or why else they would all be kneeling firmly with joy and firmness in their faith. The myth that Muslims desire martyrdom is busted when one sees the Copts. It is through our martyrdom that eyes are opened, so ISIS, you can take our lives but you cannot take our souls. In fact, our martyrdom will be the means to open the eyes of thousands others, so their souls too can be saved.

We pray that we are next, please O Lord.

Mother of Coptic Christian Beheaded by ISIS: I Thank God He Kept Faith, Died for Cross

BY BRIAN SPROWL
March 24, 2015

A girl holds up a poster with pictures of the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians beheaded by Islamic State in Libya, as they gather in a gesture to show their solidarity, in front of the Egyptian embassy in Amman February 17, 2015.

The mother of an Egyptian Copt who was among the 21 Christians beheaded by ISIS in February said she is thankful that her son kept his faith until the end.

Milad Makeen Zaky's mother described her son's faith and bravery in a video posted on Christian ministry International Christian Concern's Facebook page last week. ICC recorded the video in Upper Egypt shortly after ISIS released the video of the beheadings on Feb. 15. In the ICC video, Zaky's mother called her son a martyr and expressed that she is proud in how he carried himself in the face of adversity.

"I thank God that my son kept the faith and died for the cross, because he was the son of Christ from his birth, not my son," said Zaky's mother. She continued in the short video by talking about her son's upbringing in the church, and his personal journey abroad because he had struggled to find work in Egypt, which ultimately led him to Libya.

"From his childhood he was going to Sunday school, reading the Holy Bible, attending the prayer meetings in the church community," she told the camera.

While some might see the words of Zaky's mother as an act of defiance in the face of danger, Todd Daniels, regional manager for the Middle East sector of the ICC, told The Christian Post that he thinks the exact opposite.

"The testimony of hope in the midst of suffering is a testament to the value of the faith for which her son died," said Daniels via email on Monday. "This is the message the world needs to see, what the Christian world needs to see."

According to Daniels, like Zaky's mother, the families of the other 20 victims take great pride in the faith that their loved ones maintained until the end.

Zaky, along with 20 others, was beheaded at an unknown time on a beach in Libya, but the video of the beheading was released last month. Zaky was a part of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority. In the video entitled "A Message Signed With Blood to the Nation of the Cross," all 21 Christians were pushed to the ground and beheaded after a short speech that included a reference to Osama bin Laden.

For months, ISIS has been terrorizing people overseas in an effort to convert others to Islam. They have kidnapped, assaulted and killed thousands. The group has disfigured women by pouring acid on them, used mentally challenged children as suicide bombers and cut off the hands of women who were caught using their cellphones. They have routinely recorded videos of mass beheadings and released them via social media for the public to see.
 

Pope sends message to Charismatic Renewal movement

Pope Francis - ANSA 06/12/2015 10:37

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has urged members of the Charismatic Renewal to "walk in the newness of life."

In a Message sent on Saturday through the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy Father called on participants of the 39th Conference of the Rinnovamento nello Spirito ("Renewal of the Spirit") taking place in Rimini, Italy, to "walk in the newness of life, and, made fruitful by personal and communitarian charismatic prayer, contribute with the renewing power of the Gospel to the Christian animation of the secular city."

The Message said Pope Francis "invokes the abundant gifts of the divine Spirit" on all the groups, communities, and the entire Movement.

Biblical sin city Sodom FOUND in Jordan, claim archaeologists after decade-long dig

19:28, 14 Oct 2015    By Jon Dean

Vice: Experts claim to have found a Sodom-like city
The ancient biblical city of sin Sodom may have been found in Jordan, a team of archaeologists claim. A dig in the Middle Eastern country could have unearthed ruins from the notorious metropolis of vice.

Experts excavating the site, in Tall el Hammam, say they have discovered a Bronze Age city-state that matches "every Sodom criterion". According to the book of Genesis, God consumed Sodom and neighbouring  Gomorrah with fire and brimstone due to their resident's depraved behaviour.

Has this archaeologist found the biblical city of Sodom? The names of the cities have since become bywords for sin and vice. Steven Collins and his team have been digging at the huge site for a decade, and have found evidence of various palatial buildings. He told Popular Archaeology : "I concluded that if one wanted to find Sodom, then one should look for the largest city on the eastern Kikkar that existed during the Middle Bronze Age, the time of Abraham and Lot. Brimstone: Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God, according to the Bible "When we explored the area, the choice of Tall el Hammam as the site of Sodom was virtually a no-brainer since it was at least five to 10 times larger than all the other Bronze Age sites in the entire region."

The site is in the Jordan valley, close to the Dead Sea. It appears to have consisted of an upper and lower city - where inhabitants would live according to their wealth. The remains of defensive walls 10 metres high and five metres thick have been found. Some of the defense structures are thought to have towered 30 metres high. Mr Collins added: "It was a huge undertaking, requiring millions of bricks and, obviously, large numbers of labourers.

"It was an impressive and formidable defensive system protecting the residences of the wealthier citizens of the city, including the king's palace and related temples and administrative buildings. "The remains of a "Red Palace" in the upper city have been discovered. Life in the city appears to have come to a sudden halt, and 'Sodom' appears to have been abandoned for 700 years.
 

Full Texts of All of Pope Francis’ Addresses During His Visit to the U.S.

Here is a list of Pope Francis' individual addresses:

Holy Mass Concluding the World Meeting of Families, Sunday, September 27, 2015 (Pope Francis at Final Mass: Let Us Go Beyond a “Narrow, Petty Love”)

Pope Francis' Remarks at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia, Sunday, September 27, 2015 (Pope Condemns Prison Systems That Don' t “Offer New Possibilities”)

Meeting with Bishops at St. Martin' s Chapel in St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Philadelphia, Sunday September 27, 2015 (Pope Addresses Bishops at Seminary, Notes Sex Abuse Victims)

Address to the Festival of Families, Philadelphia, Saturday, September 26, 2015 (Energetic Francis Has Exuberant Address for Festival of Families)

Speech of Pope Francis, Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Saturday, September 26, 2015 (Pope at “Birthplace of America:”;� Defend Religious Liberty)

Holy Mass with the Bishops, Clergy, Men and Women Religious of Pennsylvania, Saturday, September 26, 2015 (Pope Francis Calls on Religious to Collaborate with Laity in Building Up the Church)

Holy Mass, New York City, Madison Square Garden, Friday, September 25, 2015 (Pope Francis: “Jesus Still Walks Our Streets!”;�)

Pope Francis' Remarks, Our Lady Queen of Angels School, Harlem, Friday, September 25, 2015 (Pope to School Children: Keep Dreaming and Smiling)

Prayer of Pope Francis, Ground Zero, New York, Friday, September 25, 2015 (Pope at Ground Zero: Peace in This World That God Has Given All)

Greetings of Pope Francis to United Nations Organization Personnel, United Nations Headquarters, New York, Friday September 25, 2015 (Pope at United Nations Echoes Paul VI)

Homily of Pope Francis, Vespers, St. Patrick' s Cathedral, New York, September 24, 2015 (Thumbs Up from the Boss: Pope Praises Religious)

Speech of Pope Francis, Charitable Center of St. Patrick Parish, Washington, D.C., September 24, 2015 (Pope to Homeless: No Moral Justification for Lack of Housing)

Speech of Pope Francis, Joint Session of the Congress of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., Wednesday, September 24, 2015 (Pope to Congress: Love People Like It' s Your Job, Because It Is)

Homily of Pope Francis, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C., Wednesday, September 23, 2015 (Pope Francis Urges Faithful: Don' t Let Your Hearts Become Numb!)

Speech of Pope Francis to the Bishops of the United States, Washington, DC, St. Matthew' s Cathedral, Wednesday, September 23, 2015 (Francis to US Bishops: Speak With Everyone, Gently and Humbly)

Remarks by President Obama and His Holiness Pope Francis at Arrival Ceremony (Courtesy of the White House Press Office), Wednesday, September 23, 2015 (Pope Francis is Welcomed at the White House)
 

Family is part of God’s plan, Pope says in 3 Philadelphia addresses

In two speeches and a homily in Philadelphia on September 26 and 27, Pope Francis emphasized the importance of family life. In his address to the festival of families and vigil of prayer at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia on the evening of September 26, Pope Francis emphasized that the family is part of God’s plan, both at creation and in the Incarnation: God did not want to come into the world other than through a family. God did not want to draw near to humanity other than through a home. God did not want any other name for himself than Emmanuel (cf. Mt 1:23). He is “God with us”. This was his desire from the beginning, his purpose, his constant effort: to say to us: “I am God with you, I am God for you”.

He is the God who from the very beginning of creation said: “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). We can add: it is not good for woman to be alone, it is not good for children, the elderly or the young to be alone. It is not good. That is why a man leaves his father and mother, and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24). The two are meant to be a home, a family. From time immemorial, in the depths of our heart, we have heard those powerful words: it is not good for you to be alone. The family is the great blessing, the great gift of this “God with us,” who did not want to abandon us to the solitude of a life without others, without challenges, without a home.

The following morning, Pope Francis met with bishops taking part in the World Meeting of Families. Addressing them at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, he said that fostering appreciation for the gift of the family is the “foremost pastoral challenge of our changing times” and warned about the effects of the consumerist mentality: The result is a culture which discards everything that is no longer “useful” or “satisfying” for the tastes of the consumer.  We have turned our society into a huge multicultural showcase tied only to the tastes of certain “consumers”, while so many others only “eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” (Mt 15:27). This causes great harm.  I would say that at the root of so many contemporary situations is a kind of impoverishment born of a widespread and radical sense of loneliness.  Running after the latest fad, accumulating “friends” on one of the social networks, we get caught up in what contemporary society has to offer.  Loneliness with fear of commitment in a limitless effort to feel recognized.

“As pastors, we bishops are called to collect our energies and to rebuild enthusiasm for making families correspond ever more fully to the blessing of God which they are!” the Pope continued. “We need to invest our energies not so much in rehearsing the problems of the world around us and the merits of Christianity, but in extending a sincere invitation to young people to be brave and to opt for marriage and the family.  Here too, we need a bit of holy parrhesia [boldness]!”

On the afternoon of September 27, Pope Francis returned to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and celebrated the concluding Mass for the World Meeting of Families. The Associated Press estimated the size of the crowd in the hundreds of thousands. In his homily, he emphasized the importance of “little gestures” within family life: [L]ike happiness, holiness is always tied to little gestures.  “Whoever gives you a cup of water in my name will not go unrewarded”, says Jesus (cf. Mk 9:41).  These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different.

They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children.  They are little signs of tenderness, affection and compassion.  Like the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early lunch awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work.  Homely gestures.  Like a blessing before we go to bed, or a hug after we return from a hard day’s work.  Love is shown by little things, by attention to small daily signs which make us feel at home.  Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love.  That is why our families, our homes, are true domestic churches. They are the right place for faith to become life, and life to become faith.
 

Full Text: Pope Francis' address to the United Nations General Assembly
Washington D.C., 25 Sep 2015

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen,Thank you for your kind words.

Once again, following a tradition by which I feel honored, the Secretary General of the United Nations has invited the Pope to address this distinguished assembly of nations. In my own name, and that of the entire Catholic community, I wish to express to you, Mr Ban Ki-moon, my heartfelt gratitude. I greet the Heads of State and Heads of Government present, as well as the ambassadors, diplomats and political and technical officials accompanying them, the personnel of the United Nations engaged in this 70th Session of the General Assembly, the personnel of the various programs and agencies of the United Nations family, and all those who, in one way or another, take part in this meeting. Through you, I also greet the citizens of all the nations represented in this hall. I thank you, each and all, for your efforts in the service of mankind.
This is the fifth time that a Pope has visited the United Nations. I follow in the footsteps of my predecessors Paul VI, in1965, John Paul II, in 1979 and 1995, and my most recent predecessor, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in 2008. All of them expressed their great esteem for the Organization, which they considered the appropriate juridical and political response to this present moment of history, marked by our technical ability to overcome distances and frontiers and, apparently, to overcome all natural limits to the exercise of power. An essential response, inasmuch as technological power, in the hands of nationalistic or falsely universalist ideologies, is capable of perpetrating tremendous atrocities. I can only reiterate the appreciation expressed by my predecessors, in reaffirming the importance which the Catholic Church attaches to this Institution and the hope which she places in its activities.
The United Nations is presently celebrating its seventieth anniversary. The history of this organized community of states is one of important common achievements over a period of unusually fast-paced changes. Without claiming to be exhaustive, we can mention the codification and development of international law, the establishment of international norms regarding human rights, advances in humanitarian law, the resolution of numerous conflicts, operations of peace-keeping and reconciliation, and any number of other accomplishments in every area of international activity and endeavour. All these achievements are lights which help to dispel the darkness of the disorder caused by unrestrained ambitions and collective forms of selfishness. Certainly, many grave problems remain to be resolved, yet it is clear that, without all those interventions on the international level, mankind would not have been able to survive the unchecked use of its own possibilities. Every one of these political, juridical and technical advances is a path towards attaining the ideal of human fraternity and a means for its greater For this reason I pay homage to all those men and women whose loyalty and self-sacrifice have benefitted humanity as a whole in these past seventy years. In particular, I would recall today those who gave their lives for peace and reconciliation among peoples, from Dag Hammarskjöld to the many United Nations officials at every level who have been killed in the course of humanitarian missions, and missions of peace and reconciliation.

Beyond these achievements, the experience of the past seventy years has made it clear that reform nd adaptation to the times is always necessary in the pursuit of the ultimate goal of granting all countries, without exception, a share in, and a genuine and equitable influence on, decision-making processes. The need for greater equity is especially true in the case of those bodies with effective executive capability, such as the Security Council, the Financial Agencies and the groups or mechanisms specifically created to deal with economic crises. This will help limit every kind of abuse or usury, especially where developing countries are concerned. The International Financial Agencies are should care for the sustainable development of countries and should ensure that they are not subjected to oppressive lending systems which, far from promoting progress, subject people to mechanisms which generate greater poverty, exclusion and dependence.
The work of the United Nations, according to the principles set forth in the Preamble and the first Articles of its founding Charter, can be seen as the development and promotion of the rule of law, based on the realization that justice is an essential condition for achieving the ideal of universal fraternity. In this context, it is helpful to recall that the limitation of power is an idea implicit in the concept of law itself. To give to each his own, to cite the classic definition of justice, means that no human individual or group can consider itself absolute, permitted to bypass the dignity and the rights of other individuals or their social groupings. The effective distribution of power (political, economic, defense-related, technological, etc.) among a plurality of subjects, and the creation of a juridical system for regulating claims and interests, are one concrete way of limiting power. Yet today’s world presents us with many false rights and – at the same time – broad sectors which are vulnerable, victims of power badly exercised: for example, the natural environment and the vast ranks of the excluded. These sectors are closely interconnected and made increasingly fragile by dominant political and economic relationships.
That is why their rights must be forcefully affirmed, by working to protect the environment and by putting an end to exclusion.

First, it must be stated that a true “right of the environment” does exist, for two reasons. First, because we human beings are part of the environment. We live in communion with it, since the environment itself entails ethical limits which human activity must acknowledge and respect. Man, for all his remarkable gifts, which “are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology” (Laudato Si’, 81), is at the same time a part of these spheres. He possesses a body shaped by physical, chemical and biological elements, and can only survive and develop if the ecological environment is favourable. Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity.
Second, because every creature, particularly a living creature, has an intrinsic value, in its existence, its life, its beauty and its interdependence with other creatures. We Christians, together with the other monotheistic religions, believe that the universe is the fruit of a loving decision by the Creator, who permits man respectfully to use creation for the good of his fellow men and for the glory of the Creator; he is not authorized to abuse it, much less to destroy it. In all religions, the environment is a fundamental The misuse and destruction of the environment are also accompanied by a relentless process of exclusion. In effect, a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged, either because they are differently abled (handicapped), or because they lack adequate information and technical expertise, or are incapable of decisive political action. Economic and social exclusion is a complete denial of human fraternity and a grave offense against human rights and the environment. The poorest are those who suffer most from such offenses, for three serious reasons: they are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the abuse of the environment. They are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing “culture of waste”.
The dramatic reality this whole situation of exclusion and inequality, with its evident effects, has led me, in union with the entire Christian people and many others, to take stock of my grave responsibility in this regard and to speak out, together with all those who are seeking urgently-needed and effective solutions. The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the World Summit, which opens today, is an important sign of hope. I am similarly confident that the Paris Conference on Climatic Change will secure fundamental and effective agreements.
Solemn commitments, however, are not enough, even though they are a necessary step toward solutions. The classic definition of justice which I mentioned earlier contains as one of its essential elements a constant and perpetual will: Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius sum cuique tribuendi. Our world demands of all government leaders a will which is effective, practical and constant, concrete steps and immediate measures for preserving and improving the natural environment and thus putting an end as quickly as possible to the phenomenon of social and economic exclusion, with its baneful consequences: human trafficking, the marketing of human organs and tissues, the sexual exploitation of boys and girls, slave labour, including prostitution, the drug and weapons trade, terrorism and international organized crime. Such is the magnitude of these situations and their toll in innocent lives, that we must avoid every temptation to fall into a declarationist nominalism which would assuage our consciences. We need to ensure that our institutions are truly effective in the struggle against all these The number and complexity of the problems require that we possess technical instruments of verification. But this involves two risks. We can rest content with the bureaucratic exercise of drawing up long lists of good proposals – goals, objectives and statistical indicators – or we can think that a single theoretical and aprioristic solution will provide an answer to all the challenges. It must never be forgotten that political and economic activity is only effective when it is understood as a prudential activity, guided by a perennial concept of justice and constantly conscious of the fact that, above and beyond our plans and programmes, we are dealing with real men and women who live, struggle and suffer, and are often forced to live in great poverty, deprived of all rights.

To enable these real men and women to escape from extreme poverty, we must allow them to be dignified agents of their own destiny. Integral human development and the full exercise of human dignity cannot be imposed. They must be built up and allowed to unfold for each individual, for every family, in communion with others, and in a right relationship with all those areas in which human social life develops – friends, communities, towns and cities, schools, businesses and unions, provinces, nations, etc.
This presupposes and requires the right to education – also for girls (excluded in certain places) – which is ensured first and foremost by respecting and reinforcing the primary right of the family to educate its children, as well as the right of churches and social groups to support and assist families in the education of their children. Education conceived in this way is the basis for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and for reclaiming the environment.
At the same time, government leaders must do everything possible to ensure that all can have the minimum spiritual and material means needed to live in dignity and to create and support a family, which is the primary cell of any social development. In practical terms, this absolute minimum has three names: lodging, labour, and land; and one spiritual name: spiritual freedom, which includes religious freedom, the right to education and other civil rights.
For all this, the simplest and best measure and indicator of the implementation of the new Agenda for development will be effective, practical and immediate access, on the part of all, to essential material and spiritual goods: housing, dignified and properly remunerated employment, adequate food and drinking water; religious freedom and, more generally, spiritual freedom and education. These pillars of integral human development have a common foundation, which is the right to life and, more generally, what we could call the right to existence of human nature itself.
The ecological crisis, and the large-scale destruction of biodiversity, can threaten the very existence of the human species. The baneful consequences of an irresponsible mismanagement of the global economy, guided only by ambition for wealth and power, must serve as a summons to a forthright reflection on man: “man is not only a freedom which he creates for himself. Man does not create himself.
He is spirit and will, but also nature” (BENEDICT XVI, Address to the Bundestag, 22 September 2011, cited in Laudato Si’, 6). Creation is compromised “where we ourselves have the final word... The misuse of creation begins when we no longer recognize any instance above ourselves, when we see nothing else but ourselves” (ID. Address to the Clergy of the Diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone, 6 August 2008, cited ibid.). Consequently, the defence of the environment and the fight against exclusion demand that we recognize a moral law written into human nature itself, one which includes the natural difference between man and woman (cf. Laudato Si’, 155), and absolute respect for life in all its stages and dimensions (cf.

Without the recognition of certain incontestable natural ethical limits and without the immediate implementation of those pillars of integral human development, the ideal of “saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war” (Charter of the United Nations, Preamble), and “promoting social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom” (ibid.), risks becoming an unattainable illusion, or, even worse, idle chatter which serves as a cover for all kinds of abuse and corruption, or for carrying out an ideological colonization by the imposition of anomalous models and lifestyles which are alien to people’s identity and, in the end, irresponsible.
War is the negation of all rights and a dramatic assault on the environment. If we want true integral human development for all, we must work tirelessly to avoid war between nations and between To this end, there is a need to ensure the uncontested rule of law and tireless recourse to negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as proposed by the Charter of the United Nations, which constitutes truly a fundamental juridical norm. The experience of these seventy years since the founding of the United Nations in general, and in particular the experience of these first fifteen years of the third millennium, reveal both the effectiveness of the full application of international norms and the ineffectiveness of their lack of enforcement. When the Charter of the United Nations is respected and applied with transparency and sincerity, and without ulterior motives, as an obligatory reference point of justice and not as a means of masking spurious intentions, peaceful results will be obtained. When, on the other hand, the norm is considered simply as an instrument to be used whenever it proves favourable, and to be avoided when it is not, a true Pandora’s box is opened, releasing uncontrollable forces which gravely harm defenseless populations, the cultural milieu and even the biological environment.
The Preamble and the first Article of the Charter of the United Nations set forth the foundations of the international juridical framework: peace, the pacific solution of disputes and the development of friendly relations between the nations. Strongly opposed to such statements, and in practice denying them, is the constant tendency to the proliferation of arms, especially weapons of mass distraction, such as nuclear weapons. An ethics and a law based on the threat of mutual destruction – and possibly the destruction of all mankind – are self-contradictory and an affront to the entire framework of the United Nations, which would end up as “nations united by fear and distrust”. There is urgent need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, in full application of the non-proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit, with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons.
The recent agreement reached on the nuclear question in a sensitive region of Asia and the Middle East is proof of the potential of political good will and of law, exercised with sincerity, patience and constancy. I express my hope that this agreement will be lasting and efficacious, and bring forth the desired fruits with the cooperation of all the parties involved.
In this sense, hard evidence is not lacking of the negative effects of military and political interventions which are not coordinated between members of the international community. For this reason, while regretting to have to do so, I must renew my repeated appeals regarding to the painful situation of the entire Middle East, North Africa and other African countries, where Christians, together with other cultural or ethnic groups, and even members of the majority religion who have no desire to be caught up in hatred and folly, have been forced to witness the destruction of their places of worship, their cultural and religious heritage, their houses and property, and have faced the alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesion to good and to peace by their own lives, or by enslavement.

These realities should serve as a grave summons to an examination of conscience on the part of those charged with the conduct of international affairs. Not only in cases of religious or cultural persecution, but in every situation of conflict, as in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan and the Great Lakes region, real human beings take precedence over partisan interests, however legitimate the latter may be. In wars and conflicts there are individual persons, our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls who weep, suffer and die. Human beings who are easily discarded when our only response is to draw up lists of problems, strategies and disagreements.
As I wrote in my letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 9 August 2014, “the most basic understanding of human dignity compels the international community, particularly through the norms and mechanisms of international law, to do all that it can to stop and to prevent further systematic violence against ethnic and religious minorities” and to protect innocent peoples.
Along the same lines I would mention another kind of conflict which is not always so open, yet is silently killing millions of people. Another kind of war experienced by many of our societies as a result of the narcotics trade. A war which is taken for granted and poorly fought. Drug trafficking is by its very nature accompanied by trafficking in persons, money laundering, the arms trade, child exploitation and other forms of corruption. A corruption which has penetrated to different levels of social, political, military, artistic and religious life, and, in many cases, has given rise to a parallel structure which threatens the credibility of our institutions.
I began this speech recalling the visits of my predecessors. I would hope that my words will be taken above all as a continuation of the final words of the address of Pope Paul VI; although spoken almost exactly fifty years ago, they remain ever timely. “The hour has come when a pause, a moment of recollection, reflection, even of prayer, is absolutely needed so that we may think back over our common origin, our history, our common destiny. The appeal to the moral conscience of man has never been as necessary as it is today... For the danger comes neither from progress nor from science; if these are used well, they can help to solve a great number of the serious problems besetting mankind (Address to the United Nations Organization, 4 October 1965). Among other things, human genius, well applied, will surely help to meet the grave challenges of ecological deterioration and of exclusion. As Paul VI said: “The real danger comes from man, who has at his disposal ever more powerful instruments that are as well fitted to bring about ruin as they are to achieve lofty conquests” (ibid.).
The common home of all men and women must continue to rise on the foundations of a right understanding of universal fraternity and respect for the sacredness of every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor, the elderly, children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a statistic. This common home of all men and women must also be built on the understanding of a certain sacredness of created nature.
Such understanding and respect call for a higher degree of wisdom, one which accepts transcendence, rejects the creation of an all-powerful élite, and recognizes that the full meaning of individual and collective life is found in selfless service to others and in the sage and respectful use of creation for the common good. To repeat the words of Paul VI, “the edifice of modern civilization has to be built on spiritual principles, for they are the only ones capable not only of supporting it, but of shedding light on it” (ibid.).

El Gaucho Martín Fierro, a classic of literature in my native land, says: “Brothers should stand by each other, because this is the first law; keep a true bond between you always, at every time – because if you fight among yourselves, you’ll be devoured by those outside”.
The contemporary world, so apparently connected, is experiencing a growing and steady social fragmentation, which places at risk “the foundations of social life” and consequently leads to “battles over conflicting interests” (Laudato Si’, 229).
The present time invites us to give priority to actions which generate new processes in society, so as to bear fruit in significant and positive historical events (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 223). We cannot permit ourselves to postpone “certain agendas” for the future. The future demands of us critical and global decisions in the face of world-wide conflicts which increase the number of the excluded and those The praiseworthy international juridical framework of the United Nations Organization and of all its activities, like any other human endeavour, can be improved, yet it remains necessary; at the same time it can be the pledge of a secure and happy future for future generations. And so it will, if the representatives of the States can set aside partisan and ideological interests, and sincerely strive to serve the common good. I pray to Almighty God that this will be the case, and I assure you of my support and my prayers, and the support and prayers of all the faithful of the Catholic Church, that this Institution, all its member States, and each of its officials, will always render an effective service to mankind, a service respectful of diversity and capable of bringing out, for sake of the common good, the best in each people and in every individual.
Upon all of you, and the peoples you represent, I invoke the blessing of the Most High, and all peace and prosperity. Thank you.
 

Pope Francis' Sept. 24 address to members of the United States Congress
Washington D.C., Sep 24, 2015
Mr. Vice-President, Mr. Speaker, Honorable Members of Congress, Dear Friends,

I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in “the land of the free asnd the home of the brave”. I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility.
Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives.
You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.
Yours is a work which makes me reflect in two ways on the figure of Moses. On the one hand, the patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of peoples to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation. On the other, the figure of Moses leads us directly to God and thus to the transcendent dignity of the human being. Moses provides us with a good synthesis of your work: you are asked to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face.

Today I would like not only to address you, but through you the entire people of the United States. Here, together with their representatives, I would like to take this opportunity to dialogue with the many thousands of men and women who strive each day to do an honest day’s work, to bring home their daily bread, to save money and –one step at a time – to build a better life for their families. These are men and women who are not concerned simply with paying their taxes, but in their own quiet way sustain the life of society. They generate solidarity by their actions, and they create organizations which offer a helping hand to those most in need.
I would also like to enter into dialogue with the many elderly persons who are a storehouse of wisdom forged by experience, and who seek in many ways, especially through volunteer work, to share their stories and their insights. I know that many of them are retired, but still active; they keep working to build up this land. I also want to dialogue with all those young people who are working to realize their great and noble aspirations, who are not led astray by facile proposals, and who face difficult situations, often as a result of immaturity on the part of many adults. I wish to dialogue with all of you, and I would like to do so through the historical memory of your people.
My visit takes place at a time when men and women of good will are marking the anniversaries of several great Americans. The complexities of history and the reality of human weakness notwithstanding, these men and women, for all their many differences and limitations, were able by hard work and self- sacrifice – some at the cost of their lives – to build a better future. They shaped fundamental values which will endure forever in the spirit of the American people. A people with this spirit can live through many crises, tensions and conflicts, while always finding the resources to move forward, and to do so with dignity. These men and women offer us a way of seeing and interpreting reality. In honoring their memory, we are inspired, even amid conflicts, and in the here and now of each day, to draw upon our deepest cultural reserves.

I would like to mention four of these Americans: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.
This year marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the guardian of liberty, who labored tirelessly that “this nation, under God, [might] have a new birth of freedom”. Building a future of freedom requires love of the common good and cooperation in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity.
All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.
Our response must instead be one of hope and healing, of peace and justice. We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today’s many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.

The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity and the urgency of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another, with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.
In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening society. It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society. Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery, born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social consensus.
Here I think of the political history of the United States, where democracy is deeply rooted in the mind of the American people. All political activity must serve and promote the good of the human person and be based on respect for his or her dignity. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776). If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life. I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in this effort.
Here too I think of the march which Martin Luther King led from Selma to Montgomery fifty years ago as part of the campaign to fulfill his “dream” of full civil and political rights for African Americans. That dream continues to inspire us all. I am happy that America continues to be, for many, a land of “dreams”. Dreams which lead to action, to participation, to commitment. Dreams which awaken what is deepest and truest in the life of a people.
In recent centuries, millions of people came to this land to pursue their dream of building a future in freedom. We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners. I say this to you as the son of immigrants, knowing that so many of you are also descended from immigrants. Tragically, the rights of those who were here long before us were not always respected. For those peoples and their nations, from the heart of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and appreciation. Those first contacts were often turbulent and violent, but it is difficult to judge the past by the criteria of the present. Nonetheless, when the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past. We must resolve now to live as nobly and as justly as possible, as we educate new generations not to turn their back on our “neighbors” and everything around us. Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal subsidiarity, in a constant effort to do our best. I am confident that we can do this.

Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions. On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation. To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Mt 7:12).
This Rule points us in a clear direction. Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated. Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us. The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.
This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes. Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.
In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.

How much progress has been made in this area in so many parts of the world! How much has been done in these first years of the third millennium to raise people out of extreme poverty! I know that you share my conviction that much more still needs to be done, and that in times of crisis and economic hardship a spirit of global solidarity must not be lost. At the same time I would encourage you to keep in mind all those people around us who are trapped in a cycle of poverty. They too need to be given hope. The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes. I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.
It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable. “Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good” (Laudato Si’, 129). This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical which I recently wrote in order to “enter into dialogue with all people about our common home” (ibid., 3). “We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all” (ibid., 14).
In Laudato Si’, I call for a courageous and responsible effort to “redirect our steps” (ibid., 61), and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States – and this Congress – have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a “culture of care” (ibid., 231) and “an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (ibid., 139). “We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology” (ibid., 112); “to devise intelligent ways of... developing and limiting our power” (ibid., 78); and to put technology “at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral” (ibid., 112). In this regard, I am confident that America’s outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead.

A century ago, at the beginning of the Great War, which Pope Benedict XV termed a “pointless slaughter”, another notable American was born: the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton. He remains a source of spiritual inspiration and a guide for many people. In his autobiography he wrote: “I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God, and yet hating him; born to love him, living instead in fear of hopeless self-contradictory hungers”. Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.
From this perspective of dialogue, I would like to recognize the efforts made in recent months to help overcome historic differences linked to painful episodes of the past. It is my duty to build bridges and to help all men and women, in any way possible, to do the same. When countries which have been at odds resume the path of dialogue – a dialogue which may have been interrupted for the most legitimate of reasons – new opportunities open up for all. This has required, and requires, courage and daring, which is not the same as irresponsibility. A good political leader is one who, with the interests of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism. A good political leader always opts to initiate processes rather than possessing spaces (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 222-223).Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.
Three sons and a daughter of this land, four individuals and four dreams: Lincoln, liberty; Martin Luther King, liberty in plurality and non-exclusion; Dorothy Day, social justice and the rights of persons; and Thomas Merton, the capacity for dialogue and openness to God.

Four representatives of the American people.I will end my visit to your country in Philadelphia, where I will take part in the World Meeting of Families. It is my wish that throughout my visit the family should be a recurrent theme. How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement! Yet I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without. Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life.
In particular, I would like to call attention to those family members who are the most vulnerable, the young. For many of them, a future filled with countless possibilities beckons, yet so many others seem disoriented and aimless, trapped in a hopeless maze of violence, abuse and despair. Their problems are our problems. We cannot avoid them. We need to face them together, to talk about them and to seek effective solutions rather than getting bogged down in discussions. At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.
A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.
In these remarks I have sought to present some of the richness of your cultural heritage, of the spirit of the American people. It is my desire that this spirit continue to develop and grow, so that as many young people as possible can inherit and dwell in a land which has inspired so many people to dream.

God bless America!
 

Pope Francis warns of danger of ISIS infiltration amid refugee crisis
Monday, 14 Sep 2015

Francis raised his concerns about the terrorist threat during an interview with a Portuguese radio station

As thousands of refugees attempt to reach Europe, Pope Francis has acknowledged the danger of infiltration by ISIS terrorists. “It’s true, I recognise that, nowadays, border safety conditions are not what they once were. The truth is that just 400 kilometres from Sicily there is an incredibly cruel terrorist group. So there is a danger of infiltration, this is true,” the Pope said during an interview with Portuguese radio station Radio Renascença.

He added that “nobody said Rome would be immune to this threat”. The Pope went on to say that “if a refugee arrives, despite all the safety precautions, we must welcome him, because this is a commandment from the Bible”. However, he also said that “we can’t be simplistic” over the way to handle the migrants and asylum seekers, referring to Europe’s “very big Labour crisis”. During the wide-ranging interview, Pope Francis also re-iterated his call for parishes and Catholic institutions to take in refugee families.

“What I asked was that in each parish and each religious institute, every monastery, should take in one family. A family, not just one person. A family gives more guarantees of security and containment, so as to avoid infiltrations of another kind,” he said. “When I say that a parish should welcome a family, I don’t mean that they should go and live in the priest’s house, in the rectory, but that each parish community should see if there is a place, a corner in the school which can be turned into a small apartment or, if necessary, that they may rent a small apartment for this family; but that they should be provided with a roof, welcomed and integrated into the community… There are convents which are almost empty.”

The Pope added that two families that the Vatican plan to take in “have already been identified and the two Vatican parishes have undertaken to go and search for them.” Francis also briefly discussed the upcoming synod on the family, which will take place next month. “At the synod we will be speaking about all the possible ways to help these families”, he said. “But one thing should be very clear – something Pope Benedict left quite clear: people who are in a second union are not excommunicated and should be integrated into Church life.”

When asked about his global popularity, Francis responded that he hopes the peace in his heart will be maintained.

“Crosses exist. You can’t see them, but they are there,” he said. “Jesus also, for a certain time, was very popular, and look at how that turned out. So nobody has their happiness guaranteed in this world. The only thing I ask is that this peace in my heart be maintained and that He keep me in his Grace, because, until the last moment we are sinners and we can renounce his Grace.”

Pope calls on every European parish to welcome a refugee family

Catholic World News - September 07, 2015

Following his September 6 Angelus address, Pope Francis appealed to “every parish, every religious community, every monastery, every shrine of Europe” to show mercy to refugee family.

“Faced with the tragedy of tens of thousands of refugees who flee death from war and hunger, and who have begun a journey moved by vital hope, the Gospel calls us to be ‘neighbors’ of the weakest and the abandoned, to give them concrete hope,” he said. “It’s not enough to say, ‘Take heart. Be patient.’”

“Therefore, before the upcoming Jubilee of Mercy, I make an appeal to parishes, religious communities, monasteries and shrines of all Europe, that they give expression to an application of the Gospel and welcome a family of refugees,” he continued. “I address my brother bishops of Europe, true pastors, so that in their dioceses they back my appeal, remembering that Mercy is the second name of Love: ‘What you have done for the least of my brothers, that you have done for me.’ The two parishes of the Vatican will also in the coming days welcome two families of refugees.”

Statue of the Virgin Mary is Left Miraculously Intact After Fire

A violent fire at a military base near Madrid spared nothing except a small statue and surrounding vegetation

August 24, 2015

The events took place at the El Goloso military base, located near the Spanish capital, seat of the nation's armored infantry brigade "Guadarrama." According to several Spanish news sites, including Infovaticana and Religión en Libertad, a fire broke out that was impossible to control, burning most of the surrounding vegetation.

 Once the flames were extinguished, to the soldiers’ surprise, in the middle of the charred area, stood a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes—totally undamaged! What's more, the soldiers were shocked to see that the grass near the statue had not been touched by the flames and that it was even still surrounded by vases filled with flowers, also intact, as if the flames had respected the space around the statue.

 The fire took place on July 30, in the middle of the heat wave which had descended upon Spain. The soldiers could not explain why the statue had suffered no damage nor why the flowers had not even been blackened or withered by the heat. The story quickly spread though social networks, some suspecting a fraud, but further investigations have dispelled all possible doubts. In the photographs, one can easily see that the ground is completely burnt, except near the statue.

 Indeed, for the most part, the soldiers on the base did not know that there was a statue of the Virgin in their garden. However, some of them who had a special devotion to Mother Mary had recommended themselves to this representation of Our Lady of Lourdes. And, the statue had already participated in official ceremonies at the military base.

 The local authorities’ investigation seems sufficient to clarify the natural aspects of the event. There are realities that human knowledge cannot understand but that faith explains. And human science and faith, working together, offer some explanation.

 Still, this story reveals Our Lady’s special protection of this statue, however simple and unpretentious. And everyone can learn a lesson from this. Unexpected events may occur that set fire to a world full of threats and evils. In the near future, in the midst of disasters that we cannot even imagine, Our Lady—especially Our Lady of Lourdes–will go through them, fearless and untouched, with the symbols of the devotion of the faithful. And those who believe, even if they are a minority discredited by the atheist or unbelieving majority, will be recognized amid the tragedy as Heaven’s beloved children.
 

Jehovah's Witnesses hid child sex abuse cases: Australian inquiry told

SYDNEY | BY MATT SIEGEL
Jul 27, 2015

The Jehovah's Witnesses Church in Australia failed to report to police more than 1,000 cases of child sexual abuse going back more than 60 years, a government investigation into abuse and its aftermath heard on Monday. Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which was launched in 2013 amid allegations of serial child abuse inside the Catholic Church in Australia, has a broad mandate to examine religious and secular organizations.

At the opening hearing into the Jehovah's Witnesses on Monday, Angus Stewart, senior council assisting the commission, described the church as an insular sect with rules designed to stem the reporting of sexual abuse
"Evidence will be put before the Royal Commission that of the 1,006 alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse identified by the Jehovah’s Witness Church since 1950, not one was reported by the church to secular authorities," he said. "This suggests that it is the practice of the Jehovah’s Witness church to retain information regarding child sexual abuse offences but not to report allegations of child sexual abuse to the police or other relevant authorities."

The U.S.-based Jehovah's Witnesses number about 8 million worldwide and are known for their foreign ministries as well as their door-to-door campaigns. There are about 68,000 members in Australia, Stewart said. Two church members, identified as BCB and BCG, are expected to give testimony containing allegations that they were discouraged by church elders from reporting their abuse. Stewart outlined multiple institutional failures to protect children or censure alleged abusers, including doctrine releasing church elders from their responsibility to report abuse where there was no mandatory legal obligation to do so. Although the church expelled 401 members after internal abuse hearings, it allowed 230 of them to return to the fold. Thirty-five were welcomed back on multiple occasions.

The church also erected high barriers to its internal process, requiring that two or more witnesses be produced before proceeding to a church "judicial committee". This blocked 125 allegations from being heard, Stewart said. The royal commission has kept Australians riveted with airings of abuse allegations and cover-ups in the highest ranks of its Orthodox Jewish and Roman Catholic communities going back decades. They have reached even into the Vatican, where Australian Cardinal George Pell, now in charge of reforming the Vatican's economic departments, has come under scrutiny over allegations he failed to take action to protect children years ago. Pell dismissed as "false", and "outrageous" allegations heard before the commission that he had little regard for victims.
 

Yoga is ‘incompatible’ with Christian faith, Greek Orthodox Church says

June 17, 2015

The Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church reacted to the UN’s decision to designate June 21 as International Day of Yoga in 2014. The Holy Synod’s statement says that the practice of yoga has “no place in the lives of Christians” since it is a fundamental aspect of Hinduism and as such is not considered a “form of exercise” but of worship!

Though praised for its calming effect and wellness, Christians are urged to seek the same comfort in God – not hindu practises. After all, the postures of yoga were created as adulation to 330 million Hindu gods. The postures are viewed in the Hindu faith as offerings to gods that in Christianity are considered to be idols.

Furthermore, a third of yoga is concerned with emptying the mind – a contradiction to what Christianity teaches. In the Christian faith, there is free choice and transformation through renewal. Furthermore, astral travel that yoga guides people into is a practise that the church continues to frown upon.

“For this reason, yoga is totally incompatible with our Christian Orthodox faith and it has no place in the life of Christians,” the statement said, even though it added that the the Church respects religious freedom.
 

Imam Hamid Slimi: Mosque raises money to repair Catholic church allegedly damaged by schizophrenic Muslim

Hamid Slimi and the members of his Mississauga mosque raised $5,000 in one night

ANDREW BUNCOMBE - Tuesday 30 June 2015

When a Muslim leader heard that a member of his own community had vandalised a nearby church, he realised he had to act. Not just with words but with deeds. So Hamid Slimi, imam of the Sayeda Khadija Centre in Mississauga, Canada, paid a visit to the nearby St Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church where he was shocked to see the damage. Pages had been torn from the Bible, an alter had been damaged and a cross had been thrown to the floor. Mr Slimi then return to his mosque and organised its members to raise money to help repair the vandalism, carried out in May. In one day they managed to raise around $5,000.
It was a very bad scene,” Mr Slimi told The Star. “The guy who did it ripped pages out of the Bible. He broke the altar. He threw the cross. When I saw this, I thought it was pure injustice. It was just wrong.”

The newspaper said that police Iqbal Hessan, 22, in connection with the damage and and charged him with breaking and entering. During the bail hearing, Mr Hessan said he was “upset with the Christian religion.” His father reportedly told the court his son had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which he believed had caused his anger and imbalance. Police said that reviewing the young man’s mental health history, police decided they were “not proceeding with a hate crime”.

Mr Slimi’s mosque did not immediately respond to phone calls. However, Father Camillo Lando, of St Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church, told The Independent that he had informed his congregation this Sunday of the gift from mosque members. “It was very nice,” he said. “I told people on Sunday. We have said there should be no revenge.”
 

ISIS seen undermining Islamic faith as more Muslims convert to Christianity

Monica Cantilero  08 June 2015

Islam will reportedly become the world's largest religion 55 years from now based on recent projections, but the barbarous practices of the Islamic State could undermine the growth of the world's Muslim population, experts said. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, Christianity and Islam will be near parity by 2050, with Christians expected to comprise 31.4 percent of the planet's population against 29.7 percent who follow Islam. The study said Islam will grow more than twice as fast as any other major religion over the next half century because of a higher fertility rate in Muslim dominated countries. However, Muslims frightened by the inhumane acts by the ISIS, which the militants claim they are doing in the name of their god Allah, are now questioning their very own faith, and presumably considering to leave it, CBS News reported on Friday.

This is backed by testimonies from missionaries working in the Islamic world who noted that more Muslims have converted to Christianity in the last 14 years since the devastating Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. The number of converts in the recent period, they said, is greater than during the entire 14 centuries of Islamic history. "Many Muslims are saying, 'If ISIS is Islam, I'm leaving.' Some are becoming atheists," said Brother Rachid, who hosts a Christian program reaching Muslims called "Daring Questions" in Arabic language. "There is a huge wave of atheism in the Arab world right now and many are turning to Jesus Christ. Islam was never faced with this crisis before." "Islam is going to collapse," added Brother Rachid, whose father is a Moroccan imam who lived as a secret Christian convert for 15 years.

Pastor Fouad Rasho of Angered Alliance Church in Sweden, who has baptized more than a hundred former Muslims, maintained that ISIS causes many Muslims to come to Jesus. "Every week I meet one or more persons who come to me and want to know more about Christianity and the Bible because they are very angry about being a Muslim. They don't want to continue to be Muslim," said Imran, who is also an immigrant from Syria.

Many converts keep their shift in religion a secret, fearing for their lives and for being an outcast. Imram (not his real name), a British college student from a Pakistani immigrant family, said leaving Islam is tough. "If someone leaves Islam and becomes an apostate, he is thrown out of his family; his family will be the first ones to abandon him," he said. "His friends will reject him and he will be killed or he will be persecuted. A lot of my friends said, 'This is the last time I'm talking to you because you disrespected the prophet Mohammed, you disrespected Islam.'"
 

Transfixed by the face of Jesus: Pilgrims at the Shroud of Turin

Pope Francis with the Shroud of Turin in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, Turin on June 21, 2015. Credit: L'Osservatore Romano

Turin, Italy, Jun 24, 2015 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At this year's exposition of the Shroud of Turin, pilgrims reflected on looking upon what some believe to be Christ's own image – miraculously imprinted on a Jewish burial cloth 2,000 years ago. “I was transfixed looking at the face,” said Peter Taylor, a seminarian for the diocese of Middlesbrough, England in an interview with CNA. “I just couldn't tear my eyes away from the face of Christ. It was just so mesmerizing that you couldn’t look away.” Taylor, who is completing his second year of formation for the priesthood at the Venerable English College (VEC) in Rome, was one of scores of pilgrims to have visited the Shroud of Turin during its April 19-June 24 exposition. Pope Francis also made a pilgrimage to Turin before the event ended. Housed in Turin's Saint John the Baptist Cathedral, the image on the 14 ft. long, 3-and-a-half ft. wide cloth is stained with the postmortem image of a man – front and back – who has been brutally tortured and crucified. Taylor said it was especially moving to see the face on the shroud in light and Pope Francis' recent Bull of Induction for the Year of Mercy, set to begin this December: “To see Jesus is to say the face of the Father's mercy.” “To really look upon Christ was really moving,” he said.

The staff and student body of the VEC began this past academic year with a trip to the Holy Land, during which they visited the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Many of these took part in a pilgrimage organized by the seminary to see the shroud during this current exposition. “To actually have been in the tomb (of Jesus), and then to see the shroud, was a very moving experience I think for everybody,” Taylor said. For pilgrims traveling to Turin to see the shroud, the experience begins a short way from the main Cathedral. Visitors are led quietly through a series of covered walkways which wind through a nearby wooded area. The path is occasionally marked by images and quotes from the local saints, such as St. John Bosco and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.

Visitors are then led into a darkened room where they are presented with a short film, without narration, showing the details of the burial cloth, and what the various markings mean. The film draws particular attention to the wounds on the shroud, emphasizing the correlation between the injuries seen on the image and those suffered by Christ as depicted in the Gospel. At the conclusion of the film, the visitors are led through the Cathedral itself, which has been darkened to allow the full effect of the backlighting behind the Shroud. They pass by various side chapels, including one containing the tomb of Turin local, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. Finally, they are led behind the central altar, and allowed to stand, in silence for about five minutes, just a few feet from where the Shroud is on display.

Although tickets are required to be able to see the Shroud close up, it is still visible from the pews which are open to everyone, and it is easy to make out many of the details owing to the overall darkness in the Cathedral in relation to the dim lighting behind the cloth. Marco Egawhary, a third-year seminarian receiving formation at the VEC for the Archdiocese of Birmingham, also took part in the pilgrimage to Turin. He told CNA he was surprised by the prayerful atmosphere considering the number of people who were going. “Before the shroud itself is actually very, very prayerful, and that was what really struck me,” he said. “It was the quietness of the atmosphere and just the deep sense of prayer that was going on.”

The Shroud of Turin is among the most well-known relics believed to be connected with Christ's Passion. Venerated for centuries by Christians as the burial shroud of Jesus, it has been subject to intense scientific study to ascertain its authenticity, and the origins of the image.  Regardless of what the evidence indicates, however, it is not necessary to believe that the Shroud is authentic, according to Catholic teaching. Belief in whether it is genuine or not is left up to the individual.  In light of the question surrounding the Shroud’s authenticity, Egawhary explained his attitude in going to Turin: “If this is the shroud that has wrapped our Lord in the tomb, then what would that mean for me and to be praying in front of it?”

Although he believes the evidence suggesting that the cloth is real is compelling, he said his faith does not depend on its being authentic. “Our faith is not based on these sort of exterior signs of things like the shroud or the true relics of the cross. Our faith is based on a personal encounter with Jesus. That’s what it is to be a Catholic.”  “My experience in front of the shroud being that powerful sort of confirmed it, that interior sense. But if a statement were to be released saying it’s not genuine…it wouldn’t change my faith.” Echoing the Church’s teaching that it is not necessary to accept the Turin relic as Jesus' actual burial shroud, Taylor said the atmosphere of holiness surrounding the Shroud nonetheless left him believing in its authenticity. “There was a real sense of being somewhere sacred, being somewhere holy,” he said.  Even so, “if the Vatican said it wasn’t authentic, for me it would still have meant something really moving,” he said. “Having that time in front of the Shroud was a very poignant moment in my life and it always will be.”
 

Hundreds of thousands rally in Rome to defend natural family and protect kids from gender theory

ROME, June 22, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Hundreds of thousands of people rallied in Rome on Saturday to protest the imposition of ‘gender ideology’ in schools and to condemn an Italian Senate bill that proposes to give same-sex partners equivalent rights as married couples.

“We rally to defend our children from gender theory introduced in the schools, that damages the innocence and the healthy development of children, to defend the natural family from the assault to which it is constantly subjected by our Parliament, to defend the right of parents to educate their children, and to promote the right of every child to grow up with a father and a mother,” rally organizer and long-time Italian pro-family activist Toni Brandi told LifeSiteNews.

Participants taking part in what organizers called a “family day” packed to overflowing the Piazza San Giovanni in front of the St. John Lateran Basilica. "We are a million," organizers said from the stage, reported Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. While Zenit in Italian has reported a million demonstrators, other news sources such as Breitbart puts the number at half a million, while mainstream media puts the number even lower. Event organizer and Catholic leader Kiko Argüello of the Neocatechumenal Way believes there were even more than a million.

The grassroots-led rally is all the more remarkable in its overwhelming numbers in that it was announced at the beginning of June and received no prior media attention. By Sunday, reports of the rally became front page news in all of Italy’s major newspapers. The rally is even more remarkable in that a similar rally held last year only drew about 600 people.

Participants, many of them families with children, held banners that stated: “The family will save the world" and "Let's defend our children.”  “No to gender ideology, no to ideological colonization of our children in the schools, no to the [Senate] bill Cirinnà and gay ‘marriage,’ rally organizers stated in a press release. “The natural family alone is the necessary and fundamental cell of society.” Brandi told LifeSiteNews that despite Pope Francis’ condemnation of gender ideology on at least four separate occasions, only a handful of Catholic bishops lent their support to the rally.

Organizers say the event was a total success. “The Piazza was filled with light and truth, without anything homophobic or discriminatory. The families of Italy have come with enormous sacrifices to Rome and have raised their voice to be heard,” the organizers stated in a press release after the event.

"It was a large group of people and families in defense of the family, moved by love for our children,” said Mario Adinolfi, director of La Croce and founder of “Voglio la Mamma” [I need Mama]. Concluded organizers: “It was a family day with a million smiling faces, all crammed, crowded together, under the sun and in the rain, without losing their smiles. Young and old parents, grandparents and grandchildren, children of all ages, even toddlers in prams, all say in unison to those who work in those hallowed halls of power: ‘Hey, we are here! You can not ignore us.’”
 

What happens when an entire country becomes infested with demons?

By David Ramos

Can a country with deep Christian roots like Mexico find itself at the mercy of demons? Some in the Church fear so.  And as a result, they called for a nation-wide exorcism of Mexico, carried out quietly last month in the cathedral of San Luis Potosí. High levels of violence, as well as drug cartels and abortion in the country, were the motivation behind the special rite of exorcism, known as “Exorcismo Magno.”

Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, the archbishop emeritus of Guadalajara, presided at the closed doors ceremony, the first ever in the history of Mexico. Also participating were Archbishop Jesús Carlos Cabrero of San Luis Potosí, Spanish demonologist and exorcist Father José Antonio Fortea, and a smaller group of priests and lay people. The event was not made known to the general public beforehand. According to Archbishop Cabrero, the reserved character of the May 20 ceremony was intended to avoid any misguided interpretations of the ritual.

But how can an entire country become infested by demons to the point that it’s necessary to resort to an Exorcismo Magno? “To the extent sin increases more and more in a country, to that extent it becomes easier for the demons to tempt (people),” Fr. Fortea told CNA. The Spanish exorcist warned that “to the extent there is more witchcraft and Satanism going on in a country, to that extent there will be more extraordinary manifestations of those powers of darkness.”

Fr. Fortea said that “the exorcism performed in San Luís Potosí is the first ever carried out in Mexico in which the exorcists came from different parts of the country and gathered together to exorcise the powers of darkness, not from a person, but from the whole country.” “This rite of exorcism, beautiful and liturgical, had never before taken place in any part of the world.  Although it had taken place in a private manner as when Saint Francis (exorcised) the Italian city of Arezzo,” he stated. The Spanish exorcist explained, however, that the celebration of this ritual will not automatically change the difficult situation Mexico is going through in a single day. “It would be a big mistake to think that by performing a full scale exorcism of the country everything would automatically change right away.”

Nevertheless, he emphasized that “if with the power we’ve received from Christ we expel the demons from a country, this will certainly have positive repercussions, because we’ll make a great number of the tempters flee, even if this exorcism is partial.” “We don’t drive out all the evil spirits from a country with just one ceremony. But even though all will not be expelled, those that were removed are not there anymore.” Fr. Fortea emphasized that “when the exorcists of a country drive out its demons, it has to be done in faith. You’re not going to see anything, feel anything, there’s not going to be any extraordinary phenomenon. We have to have faith that God conferred on the apostles a power, and that we can use this power.” “In any case, if this ritual were to be carried out in more countries once year, before or after, this would put an end to any extraordinary manifestations which would show us the rage of the devil. Because, without a doubt, the demons hate to be driven out of a place or to be bound with the power of Christ.”

The Spanish exorcist said that “it would be very desirable that when there’s an annual meeting of exorcists in a country, a ritual such as this exorcismo magno that took place in Mexico be performed.” He also emphasized that a bishop “can authorize its occurrence once a year with his priests in the cathedral.” “The bishop is the shepherd and he can use the power he has received to drive away the invisible wolves from the sheep, since Satan is like a roaring lion prowling around looking for someone to devour, and the shepherds can drive away the predator from the victim,” he concluded.
 

Attacks on minorities on rise under Modi regime, report says

New Delhi:
The past year has seen an increase in the number of attacks in India on Christians and Muslims under the ruling pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to a report compiled by human rights activists.

The report, titled 365 Days: Democracy and Secularism Under the Modi Regime, was released on Thursday in Delhi to highlight the number of alleged persecution cases and hate speeches against the two religious minorities by the Hindu majority. It was compiled by several activists that included Shabnam Hashmi, the founder of ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy); John Dayal, spokesman of the United Christian Forum for Human Rights (UCFHR); and Professor Apoorvanand, a literary and cultural critic who teaches Hindi at Delhi University.

According to the report, there were more than 200 cases of persecution against Christians, more than 170 against Muslims and more than 230 reported hate speeches leveled against the two communities in the last year around the country. Comparative figures from previous years were not provided in the report. Besides Delhi, the report was also released in 15 other cities across the country The Narendra Modi-led BJP, which came to power in May last year following a landslide election win, has been accused by rights activists of trying to turn the country into a Hindu nation with the backing of the hardline Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

“This report is a public document. As activists we have presented before the nation what is happening. If things continue in the direction they are going, then there would be a big attack on our democracy. It is a dangerous signal,” said Hashmi. The report's allegations of ongoing violence are at odds with the Indian government, which has claimed that Prime Minister Modi's election has largely ended violence against the country's minority communities. Last month India's minister for minority affairs, Najma Heptulla, told journalists during a visit to Srinagar that no attacks on religious or ethnic minorities had taken place under Modi's first year as prime minister, according to a report in The Hindu newspaper. "No one has attacked the minorities. No riots took place anywhere. Only verbal attacks were taking place, but that has stopped now," the minister was reported as saying.

In the report released Thursday, activists expressed concern over the way incidents of communal violence were taking place in a very “planned manner”. “You may not see blood spilled on the streets; still, the minority community gets affected at large,” said Harsh Mander, an activist and author who also helped compile the report. The activists pointed to a recent case of communal violence in the village of Atali, in the northern Indian state of Haryana, where Muslims were attacked and their houses allegedly burned by Hindu militants. The Muslim community had to flee the village and take shelter at a police station.

“The incident is an example of how segregation of minority communities has started happening in the country. The victims were brought in to the village after promises of protection for them, and now they are not allowed to meet any community leaders,” Professor Apoorvanand said. “A different kind of violence, more psychological, is happening. There is a re-ordering of social relations in the country. There is an attempt to tame minority communities,” he added. In a veiled attack on the pro-Hindu RSS, Vidya Bhushan Rawat, an activist who also contributed to the report, told ucanews.com that the problem is not with the government, but "with the extra-constitutional forces which think that it is their country and they can get away with anything they do”.

He said that these forces have created grass roots activists who are totally communalized and attack minorities. Rawat said it is the duty of the government to prevent the situation from getting worse. Dismissing government claims that attacks on minorities have decreased, the UCFHR's Dayal accused the government of keeping incidents of communal violence under wraps. “They are not reported. In those states, which are ruled by the BJP, the police, government and the RSS is one seamless entity. The cases that happen do not come out in the open,” Dayal said. Activists accuse Hindu militants of orchestrated persecution of minority religious groups.
 

Pope in Turin tells young people to be chaste in love, go against the flow and not retire at 20

In his last meeting on the first day of his visit to Turin, Francis met young people in Vittorio Square. In a Question and Answer exchange, he talked about love, friendship and loss of trust towards life. "I understand you. How many hypocrites speak of peace and sell weapons. How can one trust? By following Christ, whose act of extreme love, i.e. the Cross, saved humanity." The pontiff also looked at the horrors of the 20th century as evidence of the loss of trust towards world powers. He urged young people “not to retire at 20,” but “live, don’t just exist.”

Turin (AsiaNews) – Love, friendship and attitude towards life must be lived in light of the teachings of Jesus. This is the only way to understand them in their fullness, said Pope Francis in his last public address to a large gathering of young people in the city’s Vittorio Square on the first day of his pastoral visit to Turin.

On this occasion, the Holy Father blessed the World Youth Day Cross, as it made a stop on its way to Krakow, setting for the upcoming world gathering. He also answered three questions from young people. One of the latter was a 19-year-old disabled education student who is scheduled to take her exams. She asked the pope to explain "the greatest love, that of Christ”. Another, 30-year-old Sara, “has a full life" but cannot find work. A young man who helps out in seven oratories asked the pontiff about the idea of friendship with Christ. The pope’s long answer follows (Transcribed and translated by AsiaNews).

Thanks Clara, Sara and Luigi. Thank you for the questions about the three words we heard from the Gospel of John: love, life and friends. In John’s text, these three words meet, and one explains the other. It is not possible to talk about life in the Gospels without talking about love and life. It is also not possible to talk about love without this transformation, from servants into friends.

These three words are very important to life. All three have a common root, the desire to live. Let me quote the words of Blessed Piergiorgio Frassati who said, “live, don’t just exist”. You know how bad it is to see young people idle away, vegetating - excuse me for that expression. Some young people are involved in things but . . . life is life. Their life goes as life does, stuck, unable to move. You don’t know how sad it is for me to see young people retire from life at the age of 20. They have aged precociously. What then? Thus, when Chiara asked about love, what makes a young person not retire early . . . is the desire to love, to give what is most beautiful to man and God. John’s definition of God is “God is love”.

When a young person lives, he loves, grows and does not retire. He grows, grows, grows and gives. What is love? Is it one of the boring soap operas we see [on TV]? For some, that is love. Speaking about love is so beautiful. One could say many beautiful things. However, love moves on two axles. If someone, a young person, does not have these two axles, these two aspects, it is not love.

First of all, love is more in deeds than in words. Love is real. When I spoke to the Salesian family two hours ago, I spoke about the concreteness of their vocation. I told them that they feel young, and here they stand in the front row [Applause and laughter]. Love is real, more in deeds than in words. Saying "I love you" is not love. What will one do for love? One gives love. Remember that God began to speak about love when He became involved with His people. When he chose his people, he made a covenant with his people, and saved his people. God has a lot of patience. He forgave so many times; indeed, that is what he did! He did things, works of love.

The second aspect, the second axle on which love turns, is the love that one always communicates. It is, in other words, the love that listens and answers. Love is done in dialogue, in communion, it communicates. Love is neither deaf nor dumb, it communicates. These two aspects are very useful to understand what love is. It is not a romantic feeling, fleeting, or a story. No. It is something real, in what one does, and communicates. It is in dialogue, always. So, Chiara, I shall answer that question. However, we often feel let down, by love. What is Jesus’ love? How can we experience it?

Now, I know that you are good kids and I will speak truthfully. I do not want to moralise, but I do want to say something I don’t like, something unpopular. Even the pope sometimes has to take risks on things to tell the truth. Love is in deeds, in how one communicates; love is very respectful of people. It does not use people, i.e. love is chaste. And you, young people, in this hedonistic world [of ours], in this world where only advertising, pleasure . . . the good life . . . [prevail], I tell you: be chaste! Be chaste!

In life, all of us have been through times when this virtue was hard [to respect]. Yet, it is the proof of true love, one that knows how to give life, one that does not try to use others for one’s own pleasure. This love makes holy the life of the other person. "I respect you; [therefore,] I will not use you." It is not easy. We all know how hard it is to get over facile and hedonistic notions of love.

Forgive me, but let me ask you to make an effort to live love chastely. From this, one consequence follows. If love is respectful, if it is in deeds and communication, then this love is about making sacrifices for others. Look at parental love, that of countless mothers and fathers who each morning arrive at work tired because they could not sleep in order to take care of their sick child. This is love. This is respect. This is not the good life; this is service, another key concept. Love is service; it is service to others. When after the washing of the feet, Jesus explained his act to the Apostles, he taught them that we are made to serve one another. If I say that I love and I do not serve or help others, or move them forward, or make no sacrifices, then that is not love. You carried the Cross; that is the sign of God. Those deeds, for many centuries of history, end there: His Son on the Cross. The greatest service is to give one’s life, sacrificing oneself, to help others.

It is not easy to talk about love, to live love, but with what I said, Chiara, I believe I have gone some way in answering the question that you had for me. I don’t know, but I hope I have succeeded. Thank you, Sara, our theatre aficionado. We often feel distrust in life. Indeed, we do! Because there are situations that make us think, "Well, is this life worth it? Is it right to live this way? What can I expect from this life?"

Let us now turn to the wars. I sometimes said that we are in the middle of World War Three, but piecemeal. There is war in Europe. There is war in Africa. There is war in the Orient. There is war in other countries. Can I trust such a world? Can I trust world leaders? When I vote for a candidate, can I trust that he or she will not lead my country to war?

If you trust only people, you have lost. [Laughter and applause] One thought comes to mind: people, CEOs, business people who call themselves Christian and [yet] manufacture weapons. [Applause] This leads to a loss in trust. They call themselves Christian! “As a matter of fact, Father, I don’t make weapons. I just have investments in companies that manufacture weapons. Right! Why? Because of higher earnings.” Being two-faced is so conventional. Doing one thing and saying another. [Applause]. What hypocrisy! Let us see what happened the last century.

There was a great tragedy in Armenia in 1914 and 1915. [Applause] Many, millions died. Where were the great powers of that time? They turned the other way, and were interested in their war, and in those deaths. They [the Armenians] were third class human beings [Applause]. Later, in the 1930s and 1940s [came] the tragedy of the Holocaust. The great powers had photographs of the railway routes that brought the trains to the concentration camps, to Auschwitz, to kill Jews, Christians, Roma, homosexuals . . . Tell me then, why did they not bomb them? [Out of] interests, eh? [Applause]. A little later, in almost the same period, there were concentration camps in Russia. Stalin! How many Christians suffered and were killed? The great powers divided up Europe, like a pie. It took many years before we got some freedom.

It is hypocritical to talk about peace and make weapons, or sell them to the two warring sides. [Applause] I understand when you talk about the loss of trust in life. Even today, I like to say that we are living in a culture of exclusion, because what is not economically useful is excluded; children because either they are not born or are killed before they are born; seniors because they are no longer useful and are left to die, a sort of hidden euthanasia; and now young people when considering that 40 per cent is jobless. This is true exclusion! [Applause]

But why? Because, contrary to God’s will, men and women are not at the centre of the world’s economic system. The mighty buck is. Everything is done for money. [Applause] In Spanish there is a saying, "The little monkey will dance for money." [Applause]. In this culture of exclusion, can we trust life or does the loss of trust grow? Young people who cannot study, who do not work, who feel ashamed and unworthy because they have no job and earn no living . . . How often do they become addicts or commit suicide? We don’t have clear statistics about suicide among young people. How many times do they go to fight with the terrorists, at least to do something for an ideal? I understand this challenge.

For this reason, Jesus used to say not to trust riches and worldly powers. How can I trust life, how can I live a life that does not destroy, or turn into a life of destruction, a life that excludes people? How can I live? Live a life that does not disappoint me?

Let me answer Luigi. He spoke about sharing; i.e. about connecting, building. We must go forward with our construction plans. Such a life cannot disappoint. If one takes part in a construction project, one of help – helping street kids, migrants, the many who need food but also involvement – the loss of trust goes away. What should I do for this? Do not retire too soon! [You must] do, do [things]. [Applause].

Let me tell you something else: go against the flow. For you young people, stuck in the existing economic, cultural, hedonistic and consumeristic situation, with values like soap bubbles, such values lead nowhere. You must do constructive things, small ones, that unite us and our ideals. This is the best antidote to the loss of trust, to a culture that offers only pleasure – living high on the hog, with money and no worry in the world. [You must] go against the flow; be creative.
Last summer, in August, when Rome was as good as dead, I met a group of young men and women, who travelled across Italy camping here and there. They came to see me after we spoke on the phone. They were a sad sight, dirty and tired, but how happy they were. Because they went against the flow [Applause]. Often, advertisers try to convince us that this is good, that that is good. They try to make us believe that they are like diamonds when in fact they sell glass and more. We must go against this; we must not be naïve. [We must] not buy the garbage they sell as if it were diamonds.

Finally, let me reiterate what Pier Giorgio Frassati said. If you want to make it, if you want to do something good in life, live, don’t just exist. You are smart, and you will certainly say, "Father, you speak like this because you are in the Vatican [Laughter]. You have many monsignors who work for you. Things are quiet for you, and you don’t know what everyday life is." Indeed, some people might think this. The secret is to understand where one lives. In this land, in the late nineteenth century, things were very bad for young people. [There were] free masons, fiercely anti-clerical, and the Church could do nothing about it. There were devil-worshippers. It was one of the worst period in Italian history. [However,] if you want to write a good home report, go and find those male and female saints who were born at this time. They knew it and went against the flow of that culture.

Live reality! If it is glass and not diamond, try to go against the flow and do the right thing. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much [Applause]. Always love, life, friends. But one can only experience these words by going out, always going out to bring something. If one stands still, one will accomplish nothing in life, except ruin it
 

Sister Nirmala, former head of Missionaries of Charity, dies in India

Kolkata, India, Jun 23, 2015 / 11:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics around the world are mourning the death of Sister Nirmala Joshi, who passed away Tuesday. Sr. Nirmala had succeeded Blessed Teresa of Calcutta as superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, serving in that capacity from 1997 to 2009.

 Sr. Nirmala, who was 81, had suffered ill health for some years, and was hospitalized and then brought home a few days ago, dying at a Missionaries of Charity home in Kolkata in the early hours of June 23. “All people in India and especially the Archdiocese of Calcutta is saddened with this great loss of Sr. Nirmala Joshi, who was very close and dear to us,” Fr. Dominic Gomes, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Calcutta, told CNA. “She was simple, humble and emanated a strong spirituality of faith,” Fr. Gomes added. “Her exemplary life was an inspiration to the younger generation in the congregation and to people around the world.”

The body of Sr. Nirmala is lying in state at St John's Church in Kolkata's Sealdah district, and will be taken to the Missionaries of Charity's Mother House in Kolkata tomorrow. The funeral Mass will be said at 4 pm local time on Wednesday, and then interred at St. Johns cemetery. Archbishop Thomas D’Souza of Calcutta, who had visited Sr. Nirmala a fortnight ago when she had regained consciousness, has expressed his deep sadness and grief at her death, saying, 'she was a great soul.” He praised her work, noting that “she never talked about herself; she was more about how to support peace, to be helpful to the poor … she had a deep union with Jesus and she was a gentle apostle of peace until the end.”

Sr. Nirmala was in born in 1934 in Ranchi, capital of what is now India's Jharkhand state, to a Hindu brahmin family from Nepal who were serving the British during colonial rule. Her given name was Kusum, meaning “flower,” and she was the eldest sibling among eight girls and two boys. Her early education was at Christian schools. She was inspired by Mother Teresa's humanitarian work, and was baptized. She later entered the Missionaries of Charity and took the name Nirmala, meaning “purity” in Sanskrit. She completed a master's degree in political science, and studied law as well. In the 1970s, she became head of the congregation's contemplative wing. Sr. Nirmala was elected as superior general of the congregation just a few months before Mother Teresa's death in 1997, and pursued the founder's cause for beatification.

During the Missionaries of Charity's general chapter in 2009 she declined to remain head of the congregation, given her health issues. She was succeeded by Sr. Mary Prema Pierick, who remains superior general. The Indian government has recognized her work for the poor and for peace, granting her the Padma Vibhushan, the nation's second highest civilian award, in 2009. Tributes and messages have started to flood social media praising her service to the poor.  Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was quick to tweet, "Sister Nirmala's life was devoted to service, caring for the poor & underprivileged. Saddened by her demise. May her soul rest in peace.” The opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted: "Extremely saddened at the passing away of Sister Nirmala. She carried forward Mother Teresa's work with quiet dedication & dignity. She will be missed by the countless whose lives she touched." The West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee stated, “Saddened at the passing away of Sister Nirmala, who headed the Missionaries of Charity after Mother Teresa. Kolkata and the world will miss her.”

Second catholic church in Abu Dhabi inaugurated

12 June 2015

The new St. Paul church of Roman Catholic faith is a 4,560 square metres complex built on a land given by Abu Dhabi Municipality in Musaffah, the industrial area of Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi - A second catholic church in Abu Dhabi was inaugurated on Thursday evening in the presence of Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the UAE Minister for Culture, Youth and Community Development, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state and Bishop Paul Hinder, the apostolic vicar of Southern Arabia. The new St. Paul church of Roman Catholic faith is a 4,560 square metres complex built on a land given by Abu Dhabi Municipality in Musaffah, the industrial area of Abu Dhabi.

In the UAE there are almost 900,000 Catholics and up to 20,000 of them are attending weekly church services in Abu Dhabi, which, until now, was only possible in the capital's only Catholic church, the St. Joseph’s Cathedral, located in the city centre. With most labour camps now being in Musaffah and with more people living in the adjacent areas of Mohammed bin Zayed and Khalifa cities, the new St. Paul church is believed to be a blessing for Catholics on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.

'Our leadership knows its true wealth and accepts the obligation to respect and understand the many religious beliefs of the people living in this country. I believe that each of you can provide evidence that the leaders of the UAE are fulfilling that obligation,' said Shaikh Nahyan, during the inauguration ceremony. St Paul church falls under the apostolic vicariate of Southern Arabia, a territorial jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in the UAE, Oman and Yemen, with the seat of the bishop in Abu Dhabi. 'The new church is again a shining example of the generosity of the rulers of the UAE. We thank the rulers for providing an attractive environment, where Christians feel accepted and are able to live their own identity and to practice their religious beliefs,' added Bishop Hinder.

An Armenian catholic church is also being built in Musaffah industrial area, although completion dates are not yet released.
 

Gay Marriage: Age of Apostasy

 

By James Taylor | June 10, 2015

 

Holy Bible (AP Photo)

Dozens of books have been written in recent years by liberal theologians in an attempt to demonstrate that homosexuality, homosexual relationships, and homosexual marriage are fully consistent with Biblical Christianity.  I have grown weary of reading that King David was a homosexual because he loved Jonathan, or that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of a lack of hospitality, or – my personal favorite–  that the Bible never actually addresses the issue of homosexual behavior.

I would suggest that the fact that some of such foolishness comes from persons who once professed to be Christians is yet further evidence of the fact that the nation– indeed the world– is well along in the Biblically-foretold age of apostasy.  During such a period, we are warned about the prevalence of false teachers.  How can we tell whether a teacher is false?  Who can we rely on?  But for the fact that we have the Word of God, we would be adrift on such matters.

One ubiquitous question asked among Christians for a decade has been:  What Would Jesus Do?  A recent article by Dave Daubenmire thoughtfully addressed the topic:  Would Jesus Officiate at a Same Sex Marriage?  His article discusses how we can know, for certain, the answer to this question by studying exactly what His Father has revealed to us through the Holy Scriptures as to what He intended marriage to be.  If you do not believe that the Bible is the Word of God, this article may mean nothing to you.  But even if you don't believe the Bible, I challenge you to read through it, so that you at least you can say you have heard the other side.

 Before we address homosexual marriage it is imperative that we seek to know how the Definer of marriage identifies marriage.  We begin in Genesis 2:18-25, which states:

"Then the LORD God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.' Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.' For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."�

God is the one who said that it was not good for man to be alone.  So when He created a helper for man He created a woman– not another man.  God established monogamy as the pattern for marriage.  From Genesis 1:1, which reads,"In the beginning God "... ,"�  we know that the universe is not a chance happening.  God is intimately involved with our existence.  God putting His stamp on creation in a unique way creates man.  Genesis 1:26-28 states:

"Then God said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'"�

Man is created to have dominion over the earth.  Before family comes purpose.  The purpose was that mankind would have dominion. Remember, the fall of man has not occurred, yet.  Man is still in a perfect environment.  Genesis 1:31 reads, "And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good."� When God created man, He created the capstone of His creation whose job it is to run His creation.

In Genesis 2:18 the woman comes on to the scene:  "Then the Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone, I will make him a helper suitable for him."�  Woman was conceived in the mind of God, not Adam's.  Please note that this is different than the creation of male and female animals.  Male and female animals were all created at the same time.  The first creation of man and woman occurred at different times.  I believe the reason why this happened is because male and female human beings were given the responsibility of dominion.  Animals were not.  Whenever you delegate dominion you necessarily have hierarchy.

Genesis 2:21 states,"So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place."�  Eve is created out of Adam.  So Adam is only half the man he used to be because he loses one side.  In order for him to become a whole man he has to get his rib back.  But his rib is now located in somebody else.  He can't take the rib out of somebody else and put it back.  So in order to get his rib back he has to take hold of somebody else's life, and make this somebody part of his life to get the rib back that he lost.  But getting his rib back means he gets another half he didn't count on, because he not only gets his rib, he gets her rib, too.

That means, gentlemen, that what marriage does is bring back what you lost, with a bonus.  That is why she is different from you.  And, that means, ladies, if you are going to understand your rib, you have got to understand Adam because half of your ribs belong to him.  So in order for you to understand who you are, in the marriage relationship, you need to understand who he is, because half of what makes you who you are, is part of what makes him who he is.  So in order for both of you to become all that both of you were meant to be, both of you have to merge into each other.  If you don't take from your mate their strengths you do not become all that you were created to be.

God performs the marriage ceremony and Adam says, in Genesis 2:23, "This is now "..."� (note he doesn't say "she"� is now). He says, "This is now "... ,"� meaning this new relationship. Ee is talking about marriage.  "This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken from man,"� said Adam.  Adam names her.  He names her after himself.  His name in Hebrew is Eish.  The Hebrew word for woman is Eisha.  In the first marriage, she takes his name.  All Eve knows when she is created is that she is there.  She doesn't know who she fully is until she receives his name.  That is why in marriage there is a transfer of names from the woman's last name to the man's last name, because she is now merged into another purpose.
 

The Six Purposes for Which God Created Marriage and Family

There are at least six purposes for which God create marriage and family.  The first reason for marriage is procreation: having babies.  The Bible makes grand statements about having babies, the more the merrier.  Why the big deal?  Remember God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply so that you will have dominion over the earth. The reason was not just to have people that looked like them. It had to do with the theology of dominion.  Dominion meant to reproduce yourself and spread out all over the earth, so that all over this planet there would be somebody ruling under God's authority.  Mankind cannot perpetuate itself based on homosexual marriage.

Secondly, marriage is self-realization.  "Adam I will make a helpmate for you."�  As long as you are single, God is your completeness.  When it is time to marry, God is in the process of bringing someone along to fix up the rest of us to make us complete.  The reason Adam was given a wife was to complete him.  God doesn't give you somebody just like you.  For if both of you are the same, then one of you would be unnecessary.  He gives someone who is different from you so that you can make up the differences, so that you can fulfill the complete purpose of God that He has ordained.

Thirdly, marriage is a divine Illustration.  You are a type of Christ in the church.  The Bible says that you are the bride and Christ is the bridegroom.  You are to illustrate a greater reality of God to His people.  So a bad marriage means a bad illustration. Ephesians 5:32 tells us that this is an illustration of the relationship of Christ.  Homosexual marriage is not a reflection of divine illustration.  In fact, one could make an argument that it borderlines on blasphemy.

Fourthly, marriage brings about companionship.  God created marriage for companionship.  Genesis 2:18 states,"Then the Lord God said, "˜It is not good for the man to be alone.'"�  There is a great blessing in sharing life with the one you love– your companion.  God created Adam and Eve when He declared that it was not good for man to be alone.

Fifthly, marriage brings enjoyment.  God created sex for enjoyment, in the context of marriage.  I Corinthians 7:5 says,"Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."� Outside of the context of heterosexual marriage there might be "pleasure for a season,"� (Hebrews 11:25) but there can be no true, lasting enjoyment.

Sixthly, marriage is for protection.  God desires a godly seed. Malachi 2:15 reads,"But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth."�  God knows that marriage provides protection for the family.

But we now live in a lost and fallen world.  And America is not exempt from this broken world.  In fact, there are many reasons to believe that America, far from being an example for the nations, is now leading the nations in the wrong direction.  A recent article on systemic corruption in America is an eye-opening compendium of the near complete fallenness of government, corporations and the people.

The Book of Romans gives us a description of the end-times society when Jesus will return and God will pour out His wrath, beginning with Chapter 1: "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise they became fools."�  I have seen men with degrees, piled on top of degrees that get up and say how you and I evolved from monkeys.  Maybe they did, but I sure didn't!  Some of the greatest intellectual minds of the universe talk about how we evolved from a single cell protoplasmic blob!  That is beyond the comprehension of the mind.  If you saw a Boeing 747 flying across the sky, wouldn't you assume that because it could fly, it can carry people, its seats are placed in rows, and that it can do all the things it can do; wouldn't you assume that somebody thought it up, and somebody put it together?  Certainly you would not conclude that it was the accidental product of a tornado blowing through a junkyard.  Yet, the same mind can look in the sky and see a bird fly by and say, "product of chance."�

"And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures,"� reads Romans.  They worshiped the creature rather than the Creator.  We have the worship of the creature going on around us on a global scale.  Then look what happened– here is the tragic payoff. Romans continues:

"Therefore God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen."�

Now look what God did, because they worshiped the creature rather than the Creator, God steps back.  It is as if God has parameters, or limits, as to how far evil can go.  He says that evil can only go so far.  But, God says if you are going to knock against those limits, and if you knock against them long enough I am going to step back.  I will let you foul your own nest and if you want to live like a pagan, you can.  When He steps back what happened?  There was an outbreak of immorality.  Does that sound familiar?

"For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way the men abandoned that natural function of the woman and burned in their desire towards one another, men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own person the due penalty of their error,"� continues Romans.God says if you are going to live like that I am going to step back.  What happens?  An outbreak of sexual immorality begins.  It culminates in an outbreak of homosexuality.  We are there!  We have arrived!

"And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,"� says Romans.  When God steps back there is an outbreak of immorality.  When we continue to push up against those limits God will step back again, and there is an outbreak of homosexuality.  When we continue to push those limits, God steps back again and turns us over to a depraved mind, "to do those things which are not proper."�  It is a time when lawlessness begins to rule and mankind does not have any standards by which to live by.  Paul finishes the chapter by listing signs of depravity:

"being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."�

With all the attention given to homosexuality in the media, it is no wonder that Galluprecently found that the American public estimates that 23 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian, while the actual number Gallup finds to be 3.8 percent.  And the Williams Institute finds a total of 390,000 married same-sex couples.  However, regardless of the number of homosexuals in America, the definition of marriage is not decided by plebiscite.  God has defined marriage as between one man and one woman.  If a man and a man or a woman and a woman desire to be together, that is not marriage.  Marriage has been defined from the beginning, by the One who created us male and female.

Most people know the story of Jonah: he was a prophet whom God told to go to Nineveh and preach a message of repentance.  Nineveh was the capitol of Assyria which was located 550 miles Northeast of Israel.  But Jonah decides he would go to Tarshish, which was 2,500 miles to the Northwest.  Jonah is a renegade preacher who does not want to do what God called him to do.  In his rebellion, he is tossed overboard of a ship and is swallowed by a big fish.  He was there three days and three nights and was regurgitated on to dry land.

After Jonah goes on the first submarine ride in history, he agrees to do what God asked him to do.  Jonah goes to Nineveh and preaches to the city, and in one day the entire city repents. Jonah 3:5-9 reads:

"Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued a proclamation and it said, "˜In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flocks taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. ⁸' But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. "˜Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.'"�

Notice this about the people of Nineveh.  Conversion changed the political environment of Nineveh.  It didn't happen because they made better laws, hired more policemen, or provided more arms for the people to reduce the violence.  The violence was removed because the people met a living God.  The thing that changes people and brings about peace to an environment is when men repent before a living God.  Nineveh still had the same King, the same Congress, the same Supreme Court, and the same city Council.  The difference now was there was a heart transformation, and that translated into actions and behavior.  That is the only thing that will help America change.  When the people of America, leaders of America, and Supreme Court Justices of America encounter the Living God who has the power to forgive, and to transform our hearts, then we will see a new America.  It doesn't matter who is in public office; it matters if their hearts are committed to the Living God.

 

New survey shows huge growth south of Sahara but decline in Europe

The highest growth rates for Catholicism are in Africa and Asia, according to a new study released by the Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

The newly-issued report, called “Global Catholicism: Trends & Forecasts”, states that the Catholic population has grown by 57 percent since 1980. “However, this growth differs by region, with Europe’s Catholic population growing by just 6 percent while the number of Catholics in Africa grew by 238 percent. Differences between these two regions are largely attributable to differences in fertility rates over time.”
“Over the last 50 years, the proportion of the global population who are Catholic has remained remarkably steady at about 17.5 percent. Most demographers anticipate a global population exceeding 10 billion by 2100, up from 7.3 billion now. The ‘engine’ of population growth is no longer increasing numbers of children — it is extending life expectancies,” said the report by CARA, which is based at Georgetown University.
“If current trends continue, we can expect the global Catholic population to increase by about 372 million from 2015 to 2050. This would represent 29 percent growth during this period and result in the 2050 Catholic population numbering 1.64 billion.”

CARA looked at five specific regions: Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania. “Arguably, the three most important indicators of ‘vitality’ for the Catholic Church are the number of Catholics, the number of parishes and the number of priests,” the study said.

“Since 1980, the church has had a net gain of nearly 15,300 parishes representing 7 percent growth. However, with the population growing by 57 percent during this period, there has been a lag in constructing the brick and mortar of the church. In 1980 there were 3,759 Catholics per parish in the world. This figure now stands at 5,491 Catholics per parish.”
The study added: “In Asia and Africa, where the fastest growth in the Catholic population has occurred, the number of parishes had doubled since 1980. In the Americas, the number of parishes has increased by 25 percent and in Oceania they have ticked up by 5 percent. In Europe, the number of parishes has declined by 12 percent.”
The Church had about 20,000 fewer priests in 2012 than it did in 1980, a drop of 17 percent. While the number of priests in Africa and Asia doubled, the Americas netted an increase of less than 2 percent, and Europe’s priest population fell by 78,090, or 32 percent.

“In 2012, Europe was home to less than one in four Catholics,” or 23 percent, the study said. “Yet this region still has 55 percent of all Catholic parishes and 42 percent of all Catholic priests.”
The report also stated that the average percentage of an American country’s Catholics saying they attended Mass dropped from 52 per cent in the 1980s to just 29 per cent today.

The Catholic population in Africa has grown by 238 percent since 1980 and is approaching 200 million, CARA said, outstripping the growth in the number of priests, up 131 percent, and of parishes, up 112 percent. “If current trends in affiliation and differential fertility among religious groups continue, in 2040, 24 percent of Africans will be Catholic. This would result in a Catholic population of 460,350,000 in Africa,” the study said.
Asia’s numbers are less solid, it said, because of varying accounts of the number of Catholics in China, which has been put at anywhere from 9 million to 143 million. Still, with a doubling in Asia’s Catholic population from 62 million to 134 million, “the percentage of Asia’s population that is Catholic is growing slowly from 2.4 percent in 1980 to 3.2 percent in 2012,” the study said.
 

Giant 14-story 'Bulletproof' Cross being built in Karachi

Pakistans, May 15, 2015: In hopes of encouraging fellow Christians to stay in Pakistan in light of religious tensions, a Christian businessman in the country's largest city is building a giant 14-story cross outside the entrance to the largest Christian cemetery in Karachi.

Parvez Henry Gill, a devout christian who lives in Karachi, recently told The Washington Post that God came to him in a dream one night four years ago and challenged him with the divine task of finding a way to relieve Pakistani Christians from the constant fear of persecution and abuse frequently perpetrated by Pakistan's radical Muslim community. "I want you to do something different," Gill remembers God telling him. Gill admitted that he wasn't quite sure what the best way to answer God's call was. After many sleepless nights, he awoke one morning with the realization that he needed to build a giant cross. "I said, 'I am going to build a big cross, higher than any in the world, in a Muslim country,'" Gill asserted. "It will be a symbol of God, and everybody who sees this will be worry free."

Four years later, that giant cross is nearly complete, standing at the entrance to the Gora Qabaristan Cemetery in Karachi. With the cross measuring in at 140-feet tall, the cross bar is 42 feet in length. Parts of Gora Qabaristan Cemetery, which dates back to the British colonial era, have been disrespectfully settled upon, and many of the headstones have suffered defacement by the Muslim community, which makes up about 96 percent of the Pakistani population. Although many Pakistani Christians, who make up a little over 1 percent of the nation's population, have been killed, beaten, burned, wrongfully jailed and treated like second-class citizens, Gill hopes that Christians around Karachi will see the cross as a positive sign that Christianity can exist there. "I want Christian people to see it and decide to stay here," Gill explained.

Considering the Muslim community in Karachi will have objections to the huge, noticeable symbol of Christianity and will likely attempt to tear it down, Gill said destroying the cross will not be easy because it's "bulletproof" and sits on a 20-foot underground base. "Tons and tons of Iron, steel and cement," Gill stated. "If anyone tries to hit this cross, they will not succeed." Gill explained that getting construction workers to build the cross was a challenge. Upon hiring workers, Gill said he did not tell them what they were building. But when the shape of the cross became obvious, Gill said about 20 of his Muslim workers quit. However, that did not stop other Muslims from continuing to peacefully work on the cross alongside Christians.

One particular Muslim named Mohammad Ali — not to be confused with the boxing legend, Muhammad Ali —works on the cross' construction as a volunteer for an astonishing 98 hours a week and considers it a "work of God. "Henry has supported me well over the years, helping with the birth of my children, with medicine, their education, so I don't need a daily wage," Ali told the Post.

Many of the area Christians are concerned that the cross will only further escalate religious tensions in the area and bring about more attacks against them Although many of Gill's friends are concerned with his safety since they believe he has a target on his back, Gill said he doesn't worry about the possibility that Muslims are out to get him. He leaves his safety in the hands of God, who was the one who initially called him to take action. Gill referred to Psalm 91. "Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust,'" Psalm 91 reads. "Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence."

Although Gill said he wanted to build his cross higher than any other cross in the world, his structure does not top the list of the world's tallest crosses. "The Great Cross" in St. Augustine, Florida, still holds the title for the world's largest cross, as it stands in at 208 feet in height. Gill said that his cross will be the largest cross constructed in Asia When the Cross and its lighting system are finally completed later this year, Gill said he plans to hold an inaugural ceremony to honor its construction and plans to invite Pope Francis, Hillary Clinton, Queen Elizabeth and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Tips from Padre Pio for Those Who Are Suffering

If your hope is weakening and slowly dying, you should read this

Every now and then, God sends extraordinary people to our world who act as a bridge between earth and heaven, and they help thousands of people to enjoy eternal Paradise. The twentieth century gave us an especially unique one: the Capuchin friar Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, who was born in that small town in the south of Italy and died in 1968 in San Giovanni Rotondo. Saint John Paull II raised him to the altars in 2002 during a canonization ceremony that beat all attendance records. Today, it can be said that he is the most venerated saint in Italy.

Padre Pio received special gifts from God, such as the discernment of souls and his capacity to read consciences; miraculous healings; bilocation; the gift of tears; the fragrance of roses that he gave off; and, above all, the stigmata in his feet, hands and side that he suffered for 50 years.

Throughout his life, he wrote thousands of letters to those to whom he gave spiritual direction. Those letters are a source of practical Christian wisdom that is very relevant today.

Ideas to help in the face of suffering

We offer our readers this small selection of ideas from Padre Pío regarding suffering, taken from those very letters. They go straight to the point. They give us hope and lift up our soul:

1. "If you can talk with the Lord in prayer, talk to him, offer him your praise; if, due to great weariness, you cannot speak, do not find displeasure in the ways of the Lord. Stay in the room like servants of the court do, and make a gesture of reverence. He will see you, and your presence will be pleasing to him. He will bless your silence and at another time you will find consolation when he takes you by the hand."

2. "The more bitterness you experience, the more love you will receive."

3. "Jesus wants to fill your whole Heart."

4. "God wants his omnipotence to reside in your powerlessness."

5. "Faith is the torch that guides the steps of the spiritually desolate."

6. "In the uproar of the passions and of reverses of fortune, we are upheld by the comforting hope of God's inexhaustible mercy."

7. "Put all your trust only in God."

8. "The best consolation is that which comes from prayer."

9. "Fear nothing. On the contrary, consider yourself very fortunate to have been made worthy to participate in the sufferings of the Man-God."

10. "God leaves you in that darkness for his glory; here is a great opportunity for your spiritual progress."

11. "The darkness that sometimes clouds the sky of your souls is light: by means of it, when it arrives, you believe you are in darkness and you have the impression that you are in the midst of a burning briar patch. It's true that, when brambles burn, it gets smoky all around and the disoriented spirit is afraid of not seeing or understanding anything anymore. But then God speaks and makes himself present to the soul, that glimpses, understands, loves and trembles."

12. "My Jesus, love is what sustains me."

13. "Happiness is only found in heaven."

14. "When you feel despised, imitate the kingfisher, who builds its nest on the masts of ships. That is to say, raise yourself up above the earth, elevate yourselves with your mind and heart to God, who is the only one who can console you and give you strength to withstand the trial in a holy way."

15. "Be certain that the more the attacks of the devil increase, that much closer is God to your soul."

16. "Bless the Lord for your suffering and accept to drink the chalice of Gethsemane."

17. "Be capable of bearing bitter sufferings during your whole life so you can participate in the sufferings of Christ."

18. "Suffering born in a Christian way is the condition that God, the author of all grace and of all the gifts that lead to salvation, has established for granting us glory."

19. "Remember that we cannot triumph in battle if not through prayer; the choice is yours."

20. "Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is a key that opens God's heart."
 

Why Do So Many Misunderstand Pope Francis?

Here's how not to make the same mistake

This week Pope Francis found himself in yet another media firestorm. Did he really say that Palestinians leader Mahmoud Abbas was “an angel of peace”? CNN clarifies the controversy here. It turns out the Pope gave Abbas a commemorative medal just as he does other visiting politicians. On the medal is an angel of peace and, in explaining the medal, the pope encouraged Abbas (as he encourages other politicians) to be “an angel of peace.”

The misunderstanding unlocks a greater problem with Francis’ papacy. In many ways it cannot be denied that Francis’ papacy is divisive. His actions and words are misunderstood so often that we must ask why the problem occurs and what can be done about it. Some of it has to do with Francis’ informal, off the cuff style. He would rather risk some misunderstanding than to be hedged about with so many restrictions that he cannot speak from the heart.

However, there are several factors that contribute to the problem which are no fault of Pope Francis’. First we have the language barrier. The Pope usually communicates in Italian or Spanish. Subtleties of subtext and connotation are invariably lost in translation. Not only must the Italian and Spanish be translated into English, but the words are translated into every global tongue. To complicate matters further, with instant global communications the words are no sooner out of the Pontiff’s mouth than they are splashed across the world’s headlines. Public figures have never had to cope with such constant accessibility and instant communication. The third essential problem is the cultural barrier. The Pope is from Argentina. Like every pope before him, he brings his own worldview, personal history and cultural background to the papacy. It is impossible for everyone to understand the full context of his communications because it is impossible for everyone to understand what it means to be an Argentinian.

Communication is a two-way street, and in addition to the linguistic, media and cultural difficulties every public figure experiences, one must also consider the person who is receiving the communications. Every communication is filtered through the ears and eyes of the person receiving the message. Whatever Pope Francis says, therefore, will be perceived in a different way depending on each person’s personal background and bias.

Consequently, a North American progressive may very honestly perceive Pope Francis as a typical pro-gay, socialist left winger while a social conservative may see Pope Francis as a strong anti-abortion, pro-family traditional Catholic leader. In other words, those receiving the message may only hear the message they want to hear. When Pope Francis turns out to be opposed to same-sex marriage and women’s ordination the progressive will either block out the message or devise some trick to pretend it is not really Pope Francis speaking.

Likewise, the social conservative might hear that Pope Francis seems to oppose capitalism, is open to helping divorced and re-married Catholics, and says he is not the one to judge people with same-sex attraction, and become upset because the Pope challenges his pre-conceived ideas.

Finally, Pope Francis—like every public figure—has to deal with the humiliation of having his words and actions dissected and deliberately misinterpreted by the world’s press. The mainstream journalists on Vatican duty rarely have enough education in Catholic matters to report accurately, and when they do, too often their reporting is biased. They are selective in what they report, slant the stories to cater to their editor’s political viewpoint and often miss the point of both the Pope’s actions and the overall priorities and perspectives of the Catholic Church.

Therefore, here are some guidelines to avoid misunderstanding Pope Francis. First of all, don’t believe the headlines. Headlines are designed to grab your attention, not to communicate the story accurately. Don’t believe the website headlines. Don’t believe the blog headlines. Don’t believe the Facebook headlines. Don’t believe the newspaper headlines.

Secondly, try to get your news about the Catholic church from reliable Catholic news sources like Aleteia, Catholic News Service and ZENIT. These online sources may not be as exciting as sensational blogs, salacious Facebook stories or tabloid gossip, but they will use reporters who understand Pope Francis and the mission of the Catholic Church.

Thirdly, make a real attempt to get to know Pope Francis as he really is—not as the media presents him. There are plenty of good biographies on Francis and plenty of good books with his speeches, homilies and writings. Try to understand his cultural, religious and political background. Take time to understand how the turmoil of events in Argentina during his lifetime have formed his spirituality, his teaching and his pastoral role in the church. Most of all, get to know him as the shepherd of souls, the compassionate pastor and the loving Holy Father. Remember who he is and who God has called him to be.

Finally, remember to really pray for Pope Francis. As you do you will come to understand him in the deepest and truest way.  The Holy Spirit will show you how to understand Pope Francis and why he has been chosen at this time to lead Christ’s Church on earth.
 

The Future Of The Catholic Church

I'm sticking with a loving, global, imperfect church

Whether he is wearing a poncho, addressing congress, or admitting he is a bit of a Luddite, it seems Pope Francis rarely goes a day without making the news. And it's not just Catholics who seem to be hanging on the Holy Father's every word. People of all backgrounds respect this pope's concern for the poor, his candor, his joy. We never know what Pope Francis is going to do next. And that's exactly what is so exciting.
Francis reminds us to be open to the God of surprises. And he continually uses the attention directed toward him to direct his followers back to Christ. I've heard stories of many young Catholics who once felt alienated, now reconsidering a relationship with the church, thanks to Francis' example. But while Francis may make the church more inviting, he is not reason enough to stay. Thankfully, there are many good reasons to feel hopeful about the future of the Catholic Church, and many reasons for young Catholics to stick around, long after the Francis frenzy fades. Here are just a few:

Growing emphasis on the global nature of the Church. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, it's easier than ever for young people to connect with people around the world, and we want our church to reflect that diversity. The 20 newest cardinals appointed by Pope Francis represent 18 different countries. The group is diverse both geographically and ideologically, which will hopefully help to raise awareness of the wide variety of challenges faced by Catholics in different regions of the globe. Already, global voices are gaining prominence: African bishops haveexpressed concern over struggles ranging from poverty to polygamy to Boko Haram. And Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines recently noted the struggles faced by many workers in the Philippines.

Stronger partnerships between lay Catholics and religious orders. Many religious orders are formally collaborating with lay men and women in an effort to increase awareness of their charisms. The Jesuit Collaborative, in part, runs leadership programs and retreat programs for young adults who want to be steeped in Ignatian spirituality. The Sisters of Mercy have established the Mercy Associates, of which I am a member. This means I have pledged to try to live out the values of ministry, prayer, and spirituality in my own life as a lay, soon-to-be-married woman. The Sisters of Mercy work closely with the Associates, and see us as partners in their mission and ministry.

As many young people continue to seek meaningful experiences of community, these partnerships can offer a steady connection to a faith community even as we move from place to place, helping us to incorporate this spirituality into our everyday lives. In addition, I know individuals interested in building new communities of religious around the idea of temporary vows, where members commit to some of the traditional vows (poverty, chastity, and obedience/service) within the context of a community, for a limited time, instead of a lifetime.

Increasing support for women in church leadership roles. Since the Second Vatican Council, women have served in an unprecedented number of leadership roles in the church. They have led Catholic parishes, schools, hospitals, and social service agencies. A large number of women are professional lay ministers and theologians, and some teach in Catholic seminaries. Pope Francis is among those calling for a greater role for women, especially in places of authority in the church. However, in this regard, little progress has been made, and Francis himself often uses disheartening terminology when talking about women. And while some Catholics hope for further discussion about the ordination of women to the priesthood, Francis has said that the ordination of women "is not a question open to discussion." However, many Catholics--men and women--have suggested a number of creative ways for Catholic women to hold positions of power in the church, like heading a congregation or council in the Roman Curia, serving on the diplomatic corps of the Holy See, or serving as a cardinal, deacon, or lay preacher. Young Catholics accustomed to seeing women succeed in the workplace hopefully will have a chance to see become leaders in a faith setting, as well.

Increasing efforts to listen. Young Catholics want to be heard; and they have ideas worth hearing. Several dioceses made deliberate efforts to collect the opinions of Catholics at the parish level prior to the Synod on the Family. I hope that church leaders will hear the pain of those who feel alienated, and that they will listen to the ways in which it has sometimes caused that pain. I feel hopeful that our church ismoving toward greater accountability for the tragedy of sexual abuse by clergy. I hope that church leaders will be deliberate about encouraging people to be their most authentic selves. The future of our faith depends on our ability to be truly present to one another right now.

A continued call to love. Many young people find hope in Pope Francis, because he constantly reminds us of what Christ reminded us: Love one another. When people worry about the future of the church, so often those worries are related to the tangible things, the buildings, the schools, the smells and bells of the liturgy. And the church does, in fact, include those things. But it's all too easy to forget that the church also exists in each of us. It exists in the parents bundling up their children to go to Mass. It exists in the young person doubting God. It exists in the man kneeling before the Eucharist. It exists in the Catholic Workers who know the guests at their soup kitchen by name. It exists in the anti-death penalty advocates, in the people in orange jumpsuits outside the White House protesting the prison at Guantánamo Bay. It exists in the grandmothers praying rosaries for their grandchildren, and in the grandchildren running circles around their grandparents. The church exists in those who have left it, in those who are angry or sorrowful because of the church's own sins. It exists in the forgiveness in the genocide survivors I have met in Rwanda, and in the men I know serving time at San Quentin State Prison. It exists in people of all classes, races, and sexual identities. It does not know political or pastoral boundaries. The church goes out to the margins. It is at the margins. And it is at the center of all we do.

The church is imperfect. I am in love with the church, so it will always have the ability to break my heart. And it has done so with some frequency. But my vulnerability, that brokenness, often allows an entry point for the Holy Spirit. Although survey after survey tells me that many young people are opting out of the whole religion thing, I've found that the best way for me to deal with my frustrations with the church is to delve more deeply into my faith. And then, more often than not, I find a sign of hope, of the Spirit at work, out of sight, even when the church or the world seem stagnant and immutable. For many young people, in fact, the lessons we have learned through the Catholic Church have informed our desire to work against the injustices within it. I care about this beautiful, controversial, hierarchical, historic, flawed, inspired, blessed, excruciatingly slow-moving institution. I don't know what lies in store for the church. But persevering through uncertainty with hope, is exactly what it means to have faith.

The church is spirit led. So wherever the church goes, I am staying with it. And I am here by choice. I am here because I believe, and because every day I must confront my unbelief. I don't always agree with everything my church leaders say. But I trust that God will either transform their hearts or mine. Likely both. Hopefully soon. In the mean time, all we can do is keep working with others to try to build up the kingdom of God, even if we can't quite tell what it will look like. Because we believe that the Holy Spirit will continue to guide the church toward what is true and good and beautiful. We never know what the Holy Spirit will do next. And that's exactly what is so exciting.

Kerry Weber is managing editor of America and the author of "Mercy in the City."

Parrikar says Christianity sweetens Indian society

He also lauded the Christian peace efforts and said such moves are based on the Christian teaching to love the neighbor.
Posted on May 4, 2015,  New Delhi:

Christianity is a sweetener like sugar in the Indian society and the nation appreciates the Christian efforts for peace and development in the country, defense minister and BJP leader Manohar Parrikar has said. He said the sugary words on Friday while addressing a gathering of some 2,000 people, largely Christians, gathered to felicitate Bishop Jacob Barnabas, who was installed as the first bishop of the Syro-Malankara diocese of Gurgaon, based in Delhi.

"You are like sugar in society. It adds sweetness," said Parrikar, the former chief minster and native of Goa, where Christians are socially and politically powerful.

He also lauded the Christian peace efforts and said such moves are based on the Christian teaching to love the neighbor. In presence of Parrikar, Cardinal Baselios Cleemis asserted the evangelization mission of the Church and said Christians will continue to attract people to their religion.

“We will continue our work. What is our work? It is to spread the joy of the Gospel without offending anyone. There is no compromise on that,” said Cardinal Cleemis, head of the Malankara Church and president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India.

He said that Christian evangelization is to attract people to Christ without offending anyone. That work will be done respecting the constitution of India and without supporting forcible conversions. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha P. J. Kurian were among others to address the gathering along with Apostolic nuncio Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio. Kejriwal said the mission of his Aam Admi political party is to "spiritualize" politics and requested the prayers of all Christians saying be believes in the power of prayer.

He expressed concern over the attacks of churches in Delhi and said he believes the criminals will be brought to book and punished soon. Speaking in Hindi he said he trusts in the power of God in solving problems. He and his party have been through seemingly irresolvable issues. Each time, God shows the way out, he said. Kejriwal described Indian constitution as a spiritual book and said its preamble stresses the equality of all human beings. That is what the sacred books of every religion holds, he said.

He said his party would work for establishing the equality of all Indians and all parties should respect and uphold the values of the constitution. The diocese of Delhi-Gurgaon covers 22 states in northern and eastern part of India. It along with the newly erected Pune diocese covers the entire area of India outside Kerala, it base. The establishment of this diocese the Syro Malankara Church has "achieved" a long cherished dream, Archbishop Pennachio said.

The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050

Why Muslims Are Rising Fastest and the Unaffiliated Are Shrinking as a Share of the World’s Population

• The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.
• Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.
• The global Buddhist population will be about the same size it was in 2010, while the Hindu and Jewish populations will be larger than they are today.
• In Europe, Muslims will make up 10% of the overall population.
• India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia.
• In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, and Judaism will no longer be the largest non-Christian religion. Muslims will be more numerous in the U.S. than people who identify as Jewish on the basis of religion.
• Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa

As a result, according to the Pew Research projections, by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%), possibly for the first time in history.2

With the exception of Buddhists, all of the world’s major religious groups are poised for at least some growth in absolute numbers in the coming decades. The global Buddhist population is expected to be fairly stable because of low fertility rates and aging populations in countries such as China, Thailand and Japan.

Worldwide, the Hindu population is projected to rise by 34%, from a little over 1 billion to nearly 1.4 billion, roughly keeping pace with overall population growth. Jews, the smallest religious group for which separate projections were made, are expected to grow 16%, from a little less than 14 million in 2010 to 16.1 million worldwide in 2050.

Adherents of various folk religions – including African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions and Australian aboriginal religions – are projected to increase by 11%, from 405 million to nearly 450 million.

And all other religions combined – an umbrella category that includes Baha’is, Jains, Sikhs, Taoists and many smaller faiths – are projected to increase 6%, from a total of approximately 58 million to more than 61 million over the same period.3

While growing in absolute size, however, folk religions, Judaism and “other religions” (the umbrella category considered as a whole) will not keep pace with global population growth. Each of these groups is projected to make up a smaller percentage of the world’s population in 2050 than it did in 2010.4

Projected Change in the Unaffiliated Population, 2010-2050
Similarly, the religiously unaffiliated population is projected to shrink as a percentage of the global population, even though it will increase in absolute number. In 2010, censuses and surveys indicate, there were about 1.1 billion atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion.5 By 2050, the unaffiliated population is expected to exceed 1.2 billion. But, as a share of all the people in the world, those with no religious affiliation are projected to decline from 16% in 2010 to 13% by the middle of this century.

At the same time, however, the unaffiliated are expected to continue to increase as a share of the population in much of Europe and North America. In the United States, for example, the unaffiliated are projected to grow from an estimated 16% of the total population (including children) in 2010 to 26% in 2050.

As the example of the unaffiliated shows, there will be vivid geographic differences in patterns of religious growth in the coming decades. One of the main determinants of that future growth is where each group is geographically concentrated today. Religions with many adherents in developing countries – where birth rates are high, and infant mortality rates generally have been falling – are likely to grow quickly. Much of the worldwide growth of Islam and Christianity, for example, is expected to take place in sub-Saharan Africa. Today’s religiously unaffiliated population, by contrast, is heavily concentrated in places with low fertility and aging populations, such as Europe, North America, China and Japan.

Total Fertility Rate by Religion, 2010-2015
Globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – well above replacement level (2.1), the minimum typically needed to maintain a stable population.6 Christians are second, at 2.7 children per woman. Hindu fertility (2.4) is similar to the global average (2.5). Worldwide, Jewish fertility (2.3 children per woman) also is above replacement level. All the other groups have fertility levels too low to sustain their populations: folk religions (1.8 children per woman), other religions (1.7), the unaffiliated (1.7) and Buddhists (1.6).

Age Distribution of Religious Groups, 2010Another important determinant of growth is the current age distribution of each religious group – whether its adherents are predominantly young, with their prime childbearing years still ahead, or older and largely past their childbearing years.

In 2010, more than a quarter of the world’s total population (27%) was under the age of 15. But an even higher percentage of Muslims (34%) and Hindus (30%) were younger than 15, while the share of Christians under 15 matched the global average (27%). These bulging youth populations are among the reasons that Muslims are projected to grow faster than the world’s overall population and that Hindus and Christians are projected to roughly keep pace with worldwide population growth.

All the remaining groups have smaller-than-average youth populations, and many of them have disproportionately large numbers of adherents over the age of 59. For example, 11% of the world’s population was at least 60 years old in 2010. But fully 20% of Jews around the world are 60 or older, as are 15% of Buddhists, 14% of Christians, 14% of adherents of other religions (taken as a whole), 13% of the unaffiliated and 11% of adherents of folk religions. By contrast, just 7% of Muslims and 8% of Hindus are in this oldest age category.

The Pew Research Center projections attempt to incorporate patterns in religious switching in 70 countries where surveys provide information on the number of people who say they no longer belong to the religious group in which they were raised. In the projection model, all directions of switching are possible, and they may be partially offsetting. In the United States, for example, surveys find that some people who were raised with no religious affiliation have switched to become Christians, while some who grew up as Christians have switched to become unaffiliated. These types of patterns are projected to continue as future generations come of age. (For more details on how and where switching was modeled, see the Methodology. For alternative growth scenarios involving either switching in additional countries or no switching at all, see Chapter 1.)

Over the coming decades, Christians are expected to experience the largest net losses from switching. Globally, about 40 million people are projected to switch into Christianity, while 106 million are projected to leave, with most joining the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated. (See chart above.)

Impact of Migration on Population Projections, by RegionAll told, the unaffiliated are expected to add 97 million people and lose 36 million via switching, for a net gain of 61 million by 2050. Modest net gains through switching also are expected for Muslims (3 million), adherents of folk religions (3 million) and members of other religions (2 million). Jews are expected to experience a net loss of about 300,000 people due to switching, while Buddhists are expected to lose nearly 3 million.

International migration is another factor that will influence the projected size of religious groups in various regions and countries.

Forecasting future migration patterns is difficult, because migration is often linked to government policies and international events that can change quickly. For this reason, many population projections do not include migration in their models. But working with researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, the Pew Research Center has developed an innovative way of using data on past migration patterns to estimate the religious composition of migrant flows in the decades ahead. (For details on how the projections were made, see Chapter 1.)

The impact of migration can be seen in the examples shown in the graph at the right, which compares projection scenarios with and without migration in the regions where it will have the greatest impact. In Europe, for instance, the Muslim share of the population is expected to increase from 5.9% in 2010 to 10.2% in 2050 when migration is taken into account along with other demographic factors that are driving population change, such as fertility rates and age. Without migration, the Muslim share of Europe’s population in 2050 is projected to be nearly two percentage points lower (8.4%). In North America, the Hindu share of the population is expected to nearly double in the decades ahead, from 0.7% in 2010 to 1.3% in 2050, when migration is included in the projection models. Without migration, the Hindu share of the region’s population would remain about the same (0.8%).

In the Middle East and North Africa, the continued migration of Christians into the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) is expected to offset the exodus of Christians from other countries in the region.7 If migration were not factored into the 2050 projections, the estimated Christian share of the region’s population would drop below 3%. With migration factored in, however, the estimated Christian share is expected to be just above 3% (down from nearly 4% in 2010).
 

Beyond the Year 2050

Long-Term Projections of Christian and Muslim Shares of World’s PopulationThis report describes how the global religious landscape would change if current demographic trends continue. With each passing year, however, there is a chance that unforeseen events – war, famine, disease, technological innovation, political upheaval, etc. – will alter the size of one religious group or another. Owing to the difficulty of peering more than a few decades into the future, the projections stop at 2050.

Readers may wonder, though, what would happen to the population trajectories highlighted in this report if they were projected into the second half of this century. Given the rapid projected increase from 2010 to 2050 in the Muslim share of the world’s population, would Muslims eventually outnumber Christians? And, if so, when?

The answer depends on continuation of the trends described in Chapter 1. If the main projection model is extended beyond 2050, the Muslim share of the world’s population would equal the Christian share, at roughly 32% each, around 2070. After that, the number of Muslims would exceed the number of Christians, but both religious groups would grow, roughly in tandem, as shown in the graph above. By the year 2100, about 1% more of the world’s population would be Muslim (35%) than Christian (34%).

The projected growth of Muslims and Christians would be driven largely by the continued expansion of Africa’s population. Due to the heavy concentration of Christians and Muslims in this high-fertility region, both groups would increase as a percentage of the global population. Combined, the world’s two largest religious groups would make up more than two-thirds of the global population in 2100 (69%), up from 61% in 2050 and 55% in 2010.

It bears repeating, however, that many factors could alter these trajectories. For example, if a large share of China’s population were to switch to Christianity (as discussed in this sidebar), that shift alone could bolster Christianity’s current position as the world’s most populous religion. Or if disaffiliation were to become common in countries with large Muslim populations – as it is now in some countries with large Christian populations – that trend could slow or reverse the increase in Muslim numbers.

Projected Annual Growth Rate of Country Populations, 2010-2050
Regional and Country-Level Projections

Due largely to high fertility, sub-Saharan Africa is projected to experience the fastest overall growth, rising from 12% of the world’s population in 2010 to about 20% in 2050. The Middle East-North Africa region also is expected to grow faster than the world as a whole, edging up from 5% of the global population in 2010 to 6% in 2050. Ongoing growth in both regions will fuel global increases in the Muslim population. In addition, sub-Saharan Africa’s Christian population is expected to double, from 517 million in 2010 to 1.1 billion in 2050. The share of the world’s Christians living in sub-Saharan Africa will rise from 24% in 2010 to 38% in 2050.

Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to have a declining share of the world’s population (53% in 2050, compared with 59% in 2010). This will be reflected in the slower growth of religions heavily concentrated in the region, including Buddhism and Chinese folk religions, as well as slower growth of Asia’s large unaffiliated population. One exception is Hindus, who are overwhelmingly concentrated in India, where the population is younger and fertility rates are higher than in China or Japan. As previously mentioned, Hindus are projected to roughly keep pace with global population growth. India’s large Muslim population also is poised for rapid growth. Although India will continue to have a Hindu majority, by 2050 it is projected to have the world’s largest Muslim population, surpassing Indonesia.

The remaining geographic regions also will contain declining shares of the world’s population: Europe is projected to go from 11% to 8%, Latin American and the Caribbean from 9% to 8%, and North America from 5% to a little less than 5%.

Europe is the only region where the total population is projected to decline. Europe’s Christian population is expected to shrink by about 100 million people in the coming decades, dropping from 553 million to 454 million. While Christians will remain the largest religious group in Europe, they are projected to drop from three-quarters of the population to less than two-thirds. By 2050, nearly a quarter of Europeans (23%) are expected to have no religious affiliation, and Muslims will make up about 10% of the region’s population, up from 5.9% in 2010. Over the same period, the number of Hindus in Europe is expected to roughly double, from a little under 1.4 million (0.2% of Europe’s population) to nearly 2.7 million (o.4%), mainly as a result of immigration. Buddhists appear headed for similarly rapid growth in Europe – a projected rise from 1.4 million to 2.5 million.

Religious Composition of the United States, 2010-2050In North America, Muslims and followers of “other religions” are the fastest-growing religious groups. In the United States, for example, the share of the population that belongs to other religions is projected to more than double – albeit from a very small base – rising from 0.6% to 1.5%.9 Christians are projected to decline from 78% of the U.S. population in 2010 to 66% in 2050, while the unaffiliated are expected to rise from 16% to 26%. And by the middle of the 21st century, the United States is likely to have more Muslims (2.1% of the population) than people who identify with the Jewish faith (1.4%).10

In Latin America and the Caribbean, Christians will remain the largest religious group, making up 89% of the population in 2050, down slightly from 90% in 2010. Latin America’s religiously unaffiliated population is projected to grow both in absolute number and percentage terms, rising from about 45 million people (8%) in 2010 to 65 million (9%) in 2050.11
 

Changing Religious Majorities

Several countries are projected to have a different religious majority in 2050 than they did in 2010. The number of countries with Christian majorities is expected to decline from 159 to 151, as Christians are projected to drop below 50% of the population in Australia, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Republic of Macedonia and the United Kingdom.

Countries That Will No Longer Have a Christian Majority in 2050
 

Muslims in 2050 are expected to make up more than 50% of the population in 51 countries, two more than in 2010, as both the Republic of Macedonia and Nigeria are projected to gain Muslim majorities. But Nigeria also will continue to have a very large Christian population. Indeed, Nigeria is projected to have the third-largest Christian population in the world by 2050, after the United States and Brazil.

As of 2050, the largest religious group in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands is expected to be the unaffiliated.

About These Projections

While many people have offered predictions about the future of religion, these are the first formal demographic projections using data on age, fertility, mortality, migration and religious switching for multiple religious groups around the world. Demographers at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, gathered the input data from more than 2,500 censuses, surveys and population registers, an effort that has taken six years and will continue.

The projections cover eight major groups: Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, adherents of folk religions, adherents of other religions and the unaffiliated (see Appendix C: Defining the Religious Groups). Because censuses and surveys in many countries do not provide information on religious subgroups – such as Sunni and Shia Muslims or Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians – the projections are for each religious group as a whole. Data on subgroups of the unaffiliated are also unavailable in many countries. As a result, separate projections are not possible for atheists or agnostics.

The projection model was developed in collaboration with researchers in the Age and Cohort Change Project at IIASA, who are world leaders in population projections methodology. The model uses an advanced version of the cohort-component method typically employed by demographers to forecast population growth. It starts with a population of baseline age groups, or cohorts, divided by sex and religion. Each cohort is projected into the future by adding likely gains (immigrants and people switching in) and by subtracting likely losses (deaths, emigrants and people switching out) year by year. The youngest cohorts, ages 0-4, are created by applying age-specific fertility rates to each female cohort in the childbearing years (ages 15-49), with children inheriting the mother’s religion. For more details, see the Methodology.12

In the process of gathering input data and developing the projection model, the Pew Research Center previously published reports on the current size and geographic distribution of major religious groups, including Muslims (2009), Christians (2011) andseveral other faiths (2012). An initial set of projections for one religious group, Muslims, was published in 2011, although it did not attempt to take religious switching into account.

Some social theorists have suggested that as countries develop economically, more of their inhabitants will move away from religious affiliation. While that has been the general experience in some parts of the world, notably Europe, it is not yet clear whether it is a universal pattern.13 In any case, the projections in this report are not based on theories about economic development leading to secularization.

Rather, the projections extend the recently observed patterns of religious switching in all countries for which sufficient data are available (70 countries in all). In addition, the projections reflect the United Nations’ expectation that in countries with high fertility rates, those rates gradually will decline in coming decades, alongside rising female educational attainment. And the projections assume that people gradually are living longer in most countries. These and other key input data and assumptions are explained in detail in Chapter 1 and the Methodology (Appendix A).

Since religious change has never previously been projected on this scale, some cautionary words are in order. Population projections are estimates built on current population data and assumptions about demographic trends, such as declining birth rates and rising life expectancies in particular countries. The projections are what will occur if the current data are accurate and current trends continue. But many events – scientific discoveries, armed conflicts, social movements, political upheavals, natural disasters and changing economic conditions, to name just a few – can shift demographic trends in unforeseen ways. That is why the projections are limited to a 40-year time frame, and subsequent chapters of this report try to give a sense of how much difference it could make if key assumptions were different.

For example, China’s 1.3 billion people (as of 2010) loom very large in global trends. At present, about 5% of China’s population is estimated to be Christian, and more than 50% is religiously unaffiliated. Because reliable figures on religious switching in China are not available, the projections do not contain any forecast for conversions in the world’s most populous country. But if Christianity expands in China in the decades to come – as some experts predict – then by 2050, the global numbers of Christians may be higher than projected, and the decline in the percentage of the world’s population that is religiously unaffiliated may be even sharper. (For more details on the possible impact of religious switching in China, see Chapter 1.)

Finally, readers should bear in mind that within every major religious group, there is a spectrum of belief and practice. The projections are based on the number of people whoself-identify with each religious group, regardless of their level of observance. What it means to be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish or a member of any other faith may vary from person to person, country to country, and decade to decade.

Acknowledgements

These population projections were produced by the Pew Research Center as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Funding for the Global Religious Futures project comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.

Many staff members in the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life project contributed to this effort. Conrad Hackett was the lead researcher and primary author of this report. Alan Cooperman served as lead editor. Anne Shi and Juan Carlos Esparza Ochoa made major contributions to data collection, storage and analysis. Bill Webster created the graphics and Stacy Rosenberg and Ben Wormald oversaw development of the interactive data presentations and the Global Religious Futures website. Sandra Stencel, Greg Smith, Michael Lipka and Aleksandra Sandstrom provided editorial assistance. The report was number-checked by Shi, Esparza Ochoa, Claire Gecewicz and Angelina Theodorou.

Several researchers in the Age and Cohort Change project of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis collaborated on the projections, providing invaluable expertise on advanced (“multistate”) population modeling and standardization of input data. Marcin Stonawski wrote the cutting-edge software used for these projections and led the collection and analysis of European data. Michaela Potan?oková standardized the fertility data. Vegard Skirbekk coordinated IIASA’s research contributions. Additionally, Guy Abel at the Vienna Institute of Demography helped construct the country-level migration flow data used in the projections.

Over the past six years, a number of former Pew Research Center staff members also played critical roles in producing the population projections. Phillip Connor prepared the migration input data, wrote descriptions of migration results and methods, and helped write the chapters on each religious group and geographic region. Noble Kuriakose was involved in nearly all stages of the project and helped draft the chapter on demographic factors and the Methodology. Former intern Joseph Naylor helped design maps, and David McClendon, another former intern, helped research global patterns of religious switching. The original concept for this study was developed by Luis Lugo, former director of the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life project, with assistance from former senior researcher Brian J. Grim and visiting senior research fellow Mehtab Karim.

Others at the Pew Research Center who provided editorial or research guidance include Michael Dimock, Claudia Deane, Scott Keeter, Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn. Communications support was provided by Katherine Ritchey and Russ Oates.

We also received very helpful advice and feedback on portions of this report from Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute; Roger Finke, Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives and Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies, The Pennsylvania State University; Carl Haub, Senior Demographer, Population Reference Bureau; Todd Johnson, Associate Professor of Global Christianity and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary; Ariela Keysar, Associate Research Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College; Chaeyoon Lim, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Arland Thornton, Research Professor in the Population Studies Center, University of Michigan; Jenny Trinitapoli, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Demography and Religious Studies, The Pennsylvania State University; David Voas, Professor of Population Studies and Acting Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex; Robert Wuthnow, Andlinger Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University; and Fenggang Yang, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society, Purdue University.

While the data collection and projection methodology were guided by our consultants and advisers, the Pew Research Center is solely responsible for the interpretation and reporting of the data.

Roadmap to the Report

The remainder of this report details the projections from multiple angles. The first chapter looks at the demographic factors that shape the projections, including sections on fertility rates, life expectancy, age structure, religious switching and migration. The next chapter details projections by religious group, with separate sections on Christians, Muslims, the religiously unaffiliated, Hindus, Buddhists, adherents of folk or traditional religions, members of “other religions” (consolidated into a single group) and Jews. A final chapter takes a region-by-region look at the projections, including separate sections on Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, North America and sub-Saharan Africa.

1.This overall projection (9.3 billion in 2050) matches the “medium variant” forecast in the United Nations Population Division’s World Population Prospects, 2010 revision. A recent update from the United Nations has a somewhat higher estimate, 9.55 billion. The U.N. does not make projections for religious groups. ?
2.Christianity began about six centuries before Islam, a head start that helps explain why some scholars believe that, in the past, Christians always have been more numerous than Muslims around the world. The Pew Research Center consulted several scholars on this historical question. Todd M. Johnson, co-editor of the “Atlas of Global Christianity,” and Houssain Kettani, author of independent estimates of the growth of Islam, contend that the number of Christians always has exceeded the number of Muslims. But some other experts, including Oxford University demographer David Coleman and Columbia University historian Richard W. Bulliet, say it is possible that Muslims may have outnumbered Christians globally sometime between 1000 and 1600 C.E., as Muslim populations expanded and Christian populations were decimated by the Black Death in Europe. All of the experts acknowledged that estimates of the size of religious groups in the Middle Ages are fraught with uncertainty. ?
3.Although some faiths in the “other religions” category have millions of adherents around the world, censuses and surveys in many countries do not measure them specifically. Because of the scarcity of census and survey data, Pew Research has not projected the size of individual religions within this category. Estimates of the global size of these faiths generally come from other sources, such as the religious groups themselves. By far the largest of these groups is Sikhs, who numbered about 25 million in 2010, according to the World Religion Database. Estimates from other sources on the size of additional groups in this category can be found in the sidebar in Chapter 2. ?
4.Jews make up such a small share of the global population, however, that the projected decline is not visible when percentages are rounded to one decimal place. Jews comprised 0.20% of the world’s population in 2010 and are projected to comprise 0.17% in 2050. Both figures are rounded to 0.2% (two-tenths of 1%) in the charts and tables in this report. ?
5.In many countries, censuses and demographic surveys do not enumerate atheists and agnostics as distinct populations, so it is not possible to reliably estimate the global size of these subgroups within the broad category of the religiously unaffiliated. ?
6.The standard measure of fertility in this report is the Total Fertility Rate. In countries with low infant and child mortality rates, a Total Fertility Rate close to 2.1 children per woman is sufficient for each generation to replace itself. Replacement-level fertility is higher in countries with elevated mortality rates. For more information on how fertility shapes population growth, see Chapter 1. ?
7.Most immigrants come to GCC countries as temporary workers. These projections model a dynamic migrant population in GCC countries, in which some migrants leave as others arrive and, over time, there are net gains in the size of the foreign-born population within each GCC country. ?
8.The assumptions and trends used in these projections are discussed in Chapter 1 and in the Methodology section (Appendix A). ?
9.As noted above, the “other religions” category includes many groups – such as Baha’is, Sikhs and Wiccans – that cannot be projected separately due to lack of data on their fertility rates, age structure and other demographic characteristics.?
10.People who identify their religion as Jewish in surveys are projected to decline from an estimated 1.8% of the U.S. population in 2010 to 1.4% in 2050. These figures, however, do not include “cultural” or “ethnic” Jews – people who have Jewish ancestry but do not describe their present religion as Jewish. A 2013 Pew Research survey found that more than one-in-five U.S. Jewish adults (22%) say they are atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular, but consider themselves Jewish aside from religion and have at least one Jewish parent. For the purposes of the religious group projections in this report, people who identify their religion as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular are categorized as unaffiliated. To avoid double-counting, they are not included in the Jewish population. If the projected Jewish numbers were expanded to include cultural or ethnic Jews, it is possible that the size of the more broadly defined Jewish population might be greater than the projected number of U.S. Muslims in 2050. ?
11.The global projections are for Christians as a whole and do not attempt to calculate separate growth trajectories for subgroups such as Catholics and Protestants. However, other studies by the Pew Research Center show that Catholics have been declining and Protestants have been rising as a percentage of the population in some Latin American countries. See the Pew Research Center’s 2014 report “Religion in Latin America.” ?
12.How accurate have population projections using the cohort-component method been in the past? An overview of how previous projections for general populations compare with actual population trends is provided in the National Research Council’s 2000 book “Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World’s Population,”http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9828/beyond-six-billion-forecasting-the-worlds- population. ?
13.For example, there is little evidence of economic development leading to religious disaffiliation in Muslim-majority countries. In Hindu-majority India, religious affiliation remains nearly universal despite rapid social and economic change. And in China, religious affiliation – though very difficult to measure – may be rising along with economic development. ?
 
 

Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammad Followed "The Golden Rule"

Craig Considine

 Posted:  04/24/2015 1:42 pm EDT    Updated:  04/24/2015 1:59 pm EDT
Christianity and Islam are often painted as mortal enemies that will be forever fighting in a war for religious supremacy. Christians and Muslims would be wise to remember that Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammad are kindred spirits. By turning to their teachings, we can see that these two prophets are brothers, not foes.

Jesus and the Prophet were proponents of peace. Jesus told his followers: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9). Saint Peter, one of Christ's disciples, echoed this message of goodwill by encouraging people to "turn away from evil and do good... seek peace and pursue it" (Peter 3:11). Roughly 600 years after Jesus, Prophet Muhammad revealed his revelations to the tribes of Arabia, where Muhammad was particularly adamant about establishing peace. One of the Prophet's favorite sayings was: "Forgive him who wrongs you, join him who cuts you off, do good to him who does evil to you." He considered striving for peace even more important than Islamic principles such as charity, fasting, and prayer. One of the primary goals of the Prophet in Arabia was to unite all people, regardless of whether they were Jews, Christians, or atheists. He stated in a hadith: "It is keeping peace and good relations between people, as quarrels and bad feelings destroy mankind" (Al-Bukhari). These passages show how Jesus and Muhammad regarded goodwill and peace as more favorable than division and war.

Along with peace, forgiveness is one of the main aspects of the teachings of Christ and the Prophet. As a Catholic, I ask God for forgiveness on a daily basis when I utter the words: "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" (Matthew 6:15). Jesus wanted people to forgive others because it is only in forgiving others that God forgives us for our sins. Christians are also asked by Christ to extend love to all of humanity. He said: "I say to you hear: Love your enemies, And do good to those who hate you" (Luke 6:27). Like Jesus, Prophet Muhammad forgave his enemies. After a victorious battle in Mecca, Muhammad released his enemies and told them that they were free to leave unharmed. The release of his prisoners shows the Prophet's mercy and compassion because he could have easily taken revenge by killing these defenseless enemies. Jesus and Muhammad forgave their enemies because God is not harsh or revengeful, but rather mild and gentle.

Christianity and Islam also teach people to speak kindly to one another and not to gossip about others. Using cruel words is sinful in the eyes of Christ and the Prophet. Jesus's emphasis on kindness is found in Ephesians (4:29), which reads: "Let not corrupting talk come out of your months, but only such as is good for building up... that it may give grace to those who hear." Muhammad also advised people to avoid injuring other people emotionally and physically. The Prophet was particularly concerned that people in his community maintained good relations and looked beyond ethnic and tribal rivalries. He stated: "... it is unworthy to curse any one; and it is unworthy to abuse any one" (Al-Bukhari). Muhammad told his peers that "kindness is a mark of faith and whoever has not kindness has not faith" (Al-Bukhari). In our time of strife and conflict between Christianity and Islam, Christians and Muslims should remember that being kind to one another is one of the main teachings of both Jesus and Muhammad.

The most important bond that Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammad share is their love for humanity. Both of them cared for other people and groups as much as their own followers. Jesus taught his followers to "Honor all people, love the brotherhood" (1 Peter 2:17). Christ's love for humanity is also seen in Philippians (2:1-2), which calls on human beings to comfort and love one another and to be of "one accord, of one mind." The Prophet Muhammad reiterated Jesus's love for humanity in stating "All God's creatures are His family" (Al-Bukhari). He added: "None of you (truly believe) until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself" (Al-Bukhari). Christ and the Prophet did not call for discord and separation. Harmony and unity in society were much more important to them.

Jesus and Muhammad lived by "The Golden Rule," which means that they wanted human beings to treat others as they would want to be treated. The examples of Christ and the Prophet teach Christians and Muslims how they can overcome animosity and bigotry in favor of generosity and coexistence.

Parishes to serve Indian faithful established in Lancaster

Two newly established Personal Parishes are thought to be the first for Syro-Malabar Catholics in Europe

Syro-Malabar Catholics in England have been given two personal parishes by the Bishop of Lancaster, the first time such parishes have been established for the Indian eastern Church in Europe. The two personal parishes, St Alphonsa in Blackpool and Ss Kuriakose Elias Chvara and Euphrasia in Preston, will cater for the growing number of Syro-Malabar Catholics in that part of England.

The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church is an Eastern Church in full communion with Rome. Personal parishes serve specialised groups of people with particular pastoral needs.

Earlier this year St Ignatius church in Preston, which had suffered from declining Mass attendance, was saved after the Syro-Malabar Catholics were asked to take it on. Several hundred live in the town, many employed by the hospital.

Fr Mathew Jacob of the Syro-Malabar Church thanked Bishop Michael Campbell of Lancaster, saying in a statement: “We are very pleased and very grateful to the Bishop. It is recognition by the diocese of the place of the Syro-Malabar Church here.” He said the personal parishes gave members of his church a sense of identity and reference point, as well as “recognition, security and stability to our people”. A chaplaincy for Syro-Malabar Catholics was originally established by Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue in 2004.
 

After vision of Christ, Nigerian bishop says rosary will bring down Boko Haram

Rome, Italy, Apr 21, 2015 / 02:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Nigerian bishop says that he has seen Christ in a vision and now knows that the rosary is the key to ridding the country of the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram.

Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme says he is being driven by a God-given mandate to lead others in praying the rosary until the extremist group disappears. “Towards the end of last year I was in my chapel before the Blessed Sacrament… praying the rosary, and then suddenly the Lord appeared,” Bishop Dashe told CNA April 18.

In the vision, the prelate said, Jesus didn’t say anything at first, but extended a sword toward him, and he in turn reached out for it. “As soon as I received the sword, it turned into a rosary,” the bishop said, adding that Jesus then told him three times: “Boko Haram is gone.”  “I didn’t need any prophet to give me the explanation,” he said. “It was clear that with the rosary we would be able to expel Boko Haram.” The bishop said he didn’t want to tell anyone, but “felt that the Holy Spirit was pushing him to do so.”

He started with the priests of his diocese, and then told participants in the April 17-19 #WeAreN2015 congress in Madrid, Spain. The event is being sponsored by the Spanish Catholic sister groups hazteoir.org and CitizenGo to gather ideas on how to preserve the Christian presence in nations where they are most persecuted. Bishop Dashe leads the Diocese of Maiduguri, in northeastern Nigeria's Borno State. In 2009, there were around 125,000 Catholics under his guidance. After a surge in violence from the Islamist extremist group called Boko Haram, today “there are only 50 to 60 thousand left,” he said. Most of those who fled sought safer areas in other parts of Nigeria, he said. Some of the same families are now returning home as armed forces from Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon liberate their homes.

In 2014, Boko Haram became known worldwide when members kidnapped nearly 300 girls from a school in Borno State. On March 7, 2015, five suicide bombers killed 54 and wounded nearly three times as many in the capital city of Maidaguri, where the bishop lives and works. The group has killed 1,000 people across Nigeria in the first three months of 2015, according to Human Rights Watch, which reports that more than 6,000 have died in Boko Haram-led violence since 2009. Just last month, the group pledged its allegiance to ISIS – also known as the Islamic State – which launched a bloody campaign in Iraq and Syria last summer. Meanwhile, Bishop Dashe has just completed a “consolation tour” to communities in his diocese, promoting forgiveness and continued faith. He believes he was asked by Jesus to spread devotion to the rosary in order to aid them as they do so. “Maybe that’s why he did it,” said the bishop, referring to Jesus in his vision.

Bishop Dashe said he has a strong devotion to Christ’s mother, and that “I never joke with ‘Mamma Mary.’ I know she is here with us.” And he is not the only Nigerian bishop putting the future of the country in the hands of Mary. The nation’s bishops’ conference has consecrated the country to her twice in recent years Bishop Dashe believes that one day his diocese will completely recover and grow thanks to her intercession. “These terrorists… think that by burning our churches, burning our structures, they will destroy Christanity. Never,” Bishop Dashe told several hundred people from the dais of the #WeAreN2015 congress. “It may take a few months or a few years … but ‘Boko Haram is gone.’”

He later told CNA that “prayer, particularly the prayer of the rosary, is (what) will deliver us from the claws of this demon, the demon of terrorism. And of course, it is working.”

Indian Bishops condemn violence against nuns
Fifteen Catholic bishops of northeast India representing all seven northeastern India states ?meeting in ?Miao diocese in Eastern Arunachal, 12-15 March, 2015 - RV

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India has learnt with deep sorrow and dismay the sad incident that took place at the Jesus and Mary School in Ranaghat, West Bengal. The physical violence inflicted on the Nuns, including raping an ailing 75 year old Nun, and the desecration of the consecrated Hosts are ruthless inhuman acts, of which all citizens of India should be ashamed of.

While condemning such dastardly acts, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India expresses its solidarity with the victims of violence and earnestly requests the Chief Minister of West Bengal to take appropriate action to book the culprits and to provide adequate security and protection to the nuns and to the religious institutions, whose selfless service has contributed much to the development and progress of our dear Nation.

Meanwhile, fifteen Catholic bishops of northeast India representing all seven northeastern India states meeting in Miao diocese in Eastern Arunachal, 12-15 March, joined the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) in condemning the attack against Christians, rape of women and nuns and lynching of rape accused.   They condemned the attack and gang rape of religious nuns at Ranaghat in Nadia district West Bengal, 14 March and expressed solidarity to the victims.

The joint statement released 14 ?March stated, “The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Northeast India, which met at Miao, Arunachal Pradesh is pained to hear of the atrocious crime against religious women and church property at Ranaghat, Nadia District, West Bengal. We express our deepest sympathy and prayers for the victims. We appeal to the Government of West Bengal to bring to culprit to book and to ensure the safety of church personnel and church property.” They have also strongly condemned the recent rape related lynching incident in Dimapur (Nagaland State, NE India) stating that “no one should take law into their own hands.” Salesian archbishop Dominic Jala of Shillong is the president of Catholic Bishops' Conference of Northeast India.

Salesian Bishop George Pallipparampil of Miao, is the host of this regional council meeting.
 

Rape of Catholic nun, church attacks unnerve Indian Christians

Anti-christian persecution

By Muneeza Naqvi, Associated Press March 17, 2015

An Indian man prayed as Christians and others held a candlelight vigil outside the Sacred Heart cathedral in New Delhi to condemn the gang rape of a nun at a Catholic missionary school in eastern India. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

NEW DELHI — India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday that he was “deeply concerned” about the recent rape of a nun and the destruction of a church, but Christian groups said his words did little to dispel the fear gripping the tiny community since his rightwing Hindu government came to power.

“We are feeling very, very vulnerable,” said John Dayal, a Christian leader and social activist, on the sidelines of a conference of Indian Christian groups. Over the weekend a nun in her 70s was gang-raped by a group of men in the eastern state of West Bengal. The men who attacked the Convent of Jesus and Mary School in Nadia district, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the state capital of Kolkata, also ransacked the chapel and destroyed holy items, police said.

A day later, a church in the northern Haryana state was destroyed and the vandals planted a flag with the name of the Hindu god Rama, news reports said. While sexual violence is pervasive in India, and the motive for the rape of the nun was unclear, a slew of attacks have taken place against India’s Christian community, who make up little more than 2 percent of the country’s 1.3 billion people. “There is a sense of insecurity that the state will not protect us. The incidents are happening all over India,” said the Rev. Sunil Dandge, a pastor from the southern city of Bangalore.

Modi’s massive electoral victory in May came on the back of promises to overhaul India’s economy and root out endemic corruption. But he started his foray into public life with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a militant Hindu organization that is also the ideological parent group of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The RSS has long been accused of stoking hatred against Muslims and Christians. While Modi played down religious issues during the campaign, wary of alienating voters, nationalist voters turned out for him in droves. For several Hindu rightwing groups, his win has been viewed as their time to push their social and cultural agenda after years on the political fringes.

Signs of trouble began to appear in December.

Rightwing Hindu groups allied with the BJP conducted a series of ceremonies to convert Christians and Muslims to Hinduism. The events are called “homecomings,” with organizers saying they were reconverting people whose ancestors had been Hindu. Some of the Muslims and Christians, though, later said they’d either been paid to convert or threatened with violence if they did not. Then a series of churches were vandalized. And the rhetoric of groups like the RSS and its allies like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, began to get more aggressive. On Monday, senior VHP leader Surendra Jain said that attacks on churches would continue if Christians didn’t stop trying to convert people to Christianity. “Will the Christians allow us to make a Hanuman temple in the Vatican?” he was quoted saying in the newspaper Daily News & Analysis “How do we even respond to this kind of language? How can one stoop so low?” asked the Rev. Dominic Emmanuel, spokesman for the New Delhi Catholic Archdiocese.

Conversions are legal in India, but highly emotional.

Modi issued a brief statement saying that he was “deeply concerned about the incidents in Hisar, Haryana, and Nadia, West Bengal,” and asked for an immediate report from local officials. But it did little to assuage the fears of most Christians. “The PM’s image as a man influenced by the RSS is obvious to Christian groups, and that is very unfortunate,” said Dandge, the Bangalore pastor.
 

Don Bosco past pupil sacrifices life to save others in Pakistan church attack

09/03/2015  World News \ Asia

Akash Bashir, who sacrificed his life to prevent a large scale human carnage at St. John's Catholic Church in Lahore, Pakistan, on March 15. - ANSA

The heroic guard who on March 15 prevented a suicide bomber from entering a crowded Catholic Church in Lahore, Pakistan, sacrificed his life to avoid a large scale carnage in the place of worship.  Two suicide bombers exploded themselves near St. John’s Catholic Church and the Protestant Christ ?Church, some 600 meters apart, in Lahore’s predominantly Christian neighborhood of Youhannabad on ?Sunday as the faithful were gathered inside.?  In the attack on the two churches, claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar (TTP-JA), 17 people died and more than 70 were wounded.

Akash Bashir, the heroic security guard at St. John’s Church was a past pupil of the Don Bosco Technical Centre (DBTC) located in Youhannabad.  Akash Bashir was standing together with another security guard at the main gate of the church, checking those who entered. The suicide bomber approached the entrance and tried violently to get past the two young guards. When Akash stopped him he noticed the explosives hidden under his jacket. He grabbed hold of the attacker and the lower part of his body was blown off in the explosion, but saved the lives of many other people.  His identity was confirmed on March 17 as details of the story of what happened gradually became clear.

The funeral of Akash Bashir and others was held on March 17.   Akash’s father said that his 19-year old son had always aspired to be a great man. “His mother once asked him to stop standing at the church’s gate. He replied that he wanted to make people safer and did not care for his own life,” the elder Bashir said. He said that Akash and his sacrifice should be remembered.

Meanwhile the climate of violence and insecurity in the city has not lessened. The Salesian centre will remain closed until security can be guaranteed.  Today some young people cannot even return to their homes, because of continuing unrest and violence in the streets.  "As a Christian minority there are times when our only hope is in God and His Mother, Mary" the Salesians of Don Bosco in Lahore said.  Two other students of the Salesian school were injured as they passed in front of the Catholic Church.  “We regard these two guards as heroes who gave their lives to prevent a worse massacre," the local Salesians said.  "What happened remains for all of us involved in education in our Christian schools in Pakistan a warning that sooner or later we could easily be the new victims of such barbarity ... from Peshawar to Youhannabad,” they said.   (Source: ANS)

The blood of St. Gennaro liquefies in Francis’ presence

St. Gennaro’s relic miraculously turned to liquid in Naples Cathedral. This usually only happens on the feast of the saint on 19 September. Sepe said St. Gennaro loves the Pope, the blood has already liquefied by half." But the whole relic eventually turned to liquid

 Giacomo Galeazzi in naples
This is the first time it happened. San Gennaro’s blood had never liquefied during a papal visit to Naples before. None of the visits paid by Pius IX, John Paul II or Benedict XVI provoked the phenomenon. But the miracle was witnessed this afternoon, after Francis’ heartfelt address to faithful and clergy.

The Pope had taken the vial with the blood of St. Gennaro - displayed on the altar
03/21/2015

This is the first time it happened. San Gennaro’s blood had never liquefied during a papal visit to Naples before. None of the visits paid by Pius IX, John Paul II or Benedict XVI provoked the phenomenon. But the miracle was witnessed this afternoon, after Francis’ heartfelt address to faithful and clergy.  The Pope had taken the vial with the blood of St. Gennaro - displayed on the altar - in his hands and kissed it. Cardinal Sepe said over the microphone: “It is the sign that St. Gennaro loves Pope Francis: half of the blood turned to liquid.” The pronouncement was followed by a long applause from faithful. The Pope then replied: “If only half of it liquefied that means we still have work to do; we have to do better. We have only half of the saint’s love.” But the blood continued to liquefy until the whole relic had turned to liquid, with many faithful crying out as they witnessed this.

Prior to this, the Pope had set aside his written speech and continued off the cuff, describing some personal experiences he had had and encouraging faithful to worship and love the Church (“you cannot love Jesus without loving his Church”) and show apostolic zeal (“The Church exists in order to bring Jesus” to people, he stressed). “We need to start from Jesus and Mary, the Pope urged, before going on to condemn wheeling and dealing in the Church, the “terrorism of gossip” and the attachment to money displayed by some priests and religious. “Wheeling and dealing” in the Church is an “ugly” thing.

Pope Francis set aside his prepared speech and delivered a long address off the cuff at his meeting with priests, nuns and religious in Naples Cathedral. He listed a series of “testimonies” and counter-testimonies which the consecrated can give God’s people, including the “spirit of poverty”. The Pope told the story of a nun who was attached to money. “When there is wheeling and dealing in the Church this is an ugly thing,” he said.  “I remember a great nun, a good woman, a great bursar who was good at her job but was too attached to money. She would subconsciously pick people according to how much money they had: ‘I like him more, he’s very well off’. She was a bursar at an important college, she had important structures built. She was a great woman but you could see this in her. And the final humiliation this woman faced was public: she was around 70 years old and she was in the teachers’ lounge having a coffee when she fainted and fell. People tried slapping her to get her return to consciousness  but she wouldn’t. So one of the female teachers said put a 100 pesos note on her and let’s see if she reacts. The poor woman was dead but this was the last thing that was said when no one was sure if she was alive or not: an ugly testimony.”

When a priest is “greedy” and “gets involved in business”, how many scandals have been witnessed int he Church and how much lack of freedom just because of money!” the Pope continued. H eexplained the cautiousness shown by some clerics when they find themselves int he midst of moneyed people: “I should give this person a piece of my mind but since he or she is an great benefactor and great benefactors lead the lives they want, it is not my place” to start preaching to them. “A priest can have his savings, but that is not where his heart should be” otherwise “you start to differentiate between people when there’s money involved and so I ask you to examine your conscience: how is my life of poverty going? Even in the small things, whether one is a cleric or not.”

Pope Francis also condemned “worldliness “and excess, for example spending too much time in front of television.” In the diocese where I served before there was a nuns’ college. They were good nuns but the house in which they lived, the apartment they had was a bit old and needed work done to it. So they had work done on it, too much work in fact, it became a luxury house. They put televisions in every room. And when there was a soap opera on there wasn’t a nun in sight at the college!”  “These are the things that lead us to a worldly spirit,” the Pope underlined. “And this brings me onto the other point I wanted to make. Worldliness is dangerous, living a worldly life, living in a spiit of worldliness that Jesus did not want.”

In response to a question put to him by a prelate on the scarcity of vocations, the Pope said: “But bearing witness to the faith attracts vocations. ‘I want to be like that priest, I want to be like that nun’. A comfortable and worldly life does not help us.”   The Pope then spoke about the joy of testimony. “If a cleric is sad then something’s not quite right. They should go to a friend or a good spiritual councillor.” “If Jesus isn't center of your life, postpone ordination,” Francis said addressing candidates to the priesthood.  Francis also warned religious against the “terrorism of gossip” because “whoever gossips is a terrorist who throws a bomb and destroys, while he or she keeps a safe distance. At least if that person was suicide bomber…” “Gossip destroys. You talk about differences face to face,” he added.
 

Pope Francis: The Devil Hasn't Forgiven Mexico for the Virgin Mary's Apparition
 

March 16, 2015 - Highlights from the Pope's recent interview

This March 13, on the second anniversary of the Pope's election, the Vatican published an interview granted by Pope Francis to Valentina Alazraki, Televisa's Vatican correspondent. The Pope responded at length to questions on various topics: drug trafficking, migration, a possible visit to Mexico in 2016, the recent disappearance of a group of Mexican students, the misunderstanding of the phrase "Mexicanization" of Argentina, his devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, his intuition that his pontificate will only last a few years, and the reform of the Curia, among other things.

The interview was recorded by the Vatican Television Center and Vatican Radio, which published its complete transcript.

Here are the highlights:

1. Pope Francis responded to the reactions unleashed by the private email he sent to a friend, where he said that the bishops should try to avoid the "Mexicanization" of Argentina.

He said,"Clearly, this is a 'technical' term, if I may use that expression. It has nothing to do with Mexico's dignity. When we use the term 'Balkanization,' neither the Serbs, nor the Macedonians, nor the Croats get angry. And we say that something is 'Balkanized' and it is used technically, and the mass media have used it many times, haven't they?"
He recognized that his comment stirred up the dust and said that, according to statistics that he had consulted, 90% of Mexicans were not offended by the expression. "Which makes me happy. It would have been very painful for me if it had been interpreted that way. The government itself, after having asked, accepted my explanations. These, which are the real ones. And everything is in peace.  In other words, that misunderstanding didn't close the doors of Mexico to me. I will go to Mexico."

2. The devil hasn't forgiven Mexico for the Virgin Mary's apparition

"This is not the first difficult moment that Mexico has passed through. In other words, it is connected with holiness, don't you think? That is, Mexico went through times of religious persecution, which led to martyrs. I think that the devil punishes Mexico with a lot of problems. Because of this: I think the devil has not forgiven Mexico, for Mary having shown her Son there. That's my interpretation. In other words, Mexico is privileged by martyrdom, because it has recognized and defended its Mother.
"And you know this well yourself. You will find some Mexicans who are Catholics, some who are not Catholics, some who are atheists, but they are all 'Guadalupanos,' [devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe- translator's note]. That is to say, they all feel that they are her children. Sons and daughters of the one who brought the Savior who destroyed the devil.  That is to say, the holiness connection is there too. I believe that the devil is making Mexico pay, don't you? And that is the reason for all these things. You can see that throughout history there have always appeared hot spots of grave conflict, right?"

3. Promise to make a proper visit to Mexico

Alazraki asked him why he is not going to Mexico this year, despite visiting Philadelphia in the USA. The Pope responded that he thought of doing it by entering the USA crossing the Mexican border. "But, if I went to Ciudad Juárez, for example, and entered from there, it would have caused a bit of an uproar: 'How is it possible that he goes there and doesn't come to see Our Lady, our Mother!' Besides, I can't visit Mexico piece by piece; I'd need a whole week to do it.

4. Devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe

The conversation took place in Saint Martha Hall, in chairs right in front of a large image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  In this way, the Pope showed his great devotion to the "mestiza" Virgin. "She is the Mother who brings the Gospel to us in Mexico. [...] She is an expectant Mother. It shows that she is bearing a child. But, in what way does she show it? How does she reveal herself, beyond the fact that she is pregnant? She appears as a mestiza. That is a prophecy of our American mixture of ethnicities."

5. Mary and the mixture of ethnicities

He repeatedly emphasized the cultural and religious experience of the mixture of ethnicities through the apparition. "That is why she goes beyond the limits of Mexico, she goes far beyond it and is the unity of the American people. She is the Mother. America isn't an orphan; it has a Mother, a Mother who brings us Jesus."
"That is to say, our Salvation, which is Christ, comes through a woman, and she wanted to show through her appearing with mixed ethnicity that she brought Christ especially to Mexico. And she chooses to reveal herself through a son of that culture. She doesn't choose a Spanish man, or a colonist, or a beautiful woman; no, no. A simple, married, humble man. And so for me she is a Mother. She is a mother of mixed ethnicity and, I dare to say, something more. She is the beginning of something we don't talk about much in America: she is the initiator of holiness. In other words, in the colonization of America, in the conquest of America, there was a lot of sin."

The complete interview was published by Vatican Radio.
Here in Spanish Los primeros dos años de la “Era Francisco” en entrevista a Televisa Vatican Radio
 

He left the seminary to practice Yoga and to follow Hindu gurus until in prayer Jesus touched him!

Testimony of Fr Paresh Gujarat (Ahmedabad diocese)

I am a Gujarati, from Bombay. Though my fore-fathers hail from Gujarat, we have settled down in Bombay since last two generations. We converted to Catholicism since the last two generations only, as the church of Gujarat is 114 years old..

I was born and brought up in Bombay. My daddy expired when I was in 9th std. Being the youngest of six brothers and sisters, I was showered with a lot of love and care. I joined the Engineering College (Production Engineering) soon after my 12th std. I was elected as the General Secretary of the college. I was into blood donations and was also involved in other social work in hospitals and other public centers. When once I visited TATA hospital I met a little 11yr old girl suffering from leukemia. Her parents were finding it difficult to get blood donors for her. In Bombay there are several such families begging to the doctors for the life of their babies. I decided to help this little girl. We had a big group of blood donors. I also arranged for the treatment expense. Though we tried our best to save her life she died in 6 months. This death had its effect on me and my perspective about life changed. My dream was to become successful person, go abroad and work but suddenly, I saw that nothing or no one can stop prevent death, no matter how much money you have!
I started asking God 'why do you allow so much suffering? Why do you allow people to cry?' I wanted to experience God if He really existed and my search for God began.

I was just a routine church- goer. During those days I got my hand on a philosophical book by Swami Vivekananda. I found it interesting. I read all the volumes of the books by Swami Vivekananda. Somehow I felt that we can never encounter God at home. One needs to renounce the world. Thus, with little or no faith in Jesus, I went to Gujarat to become a priest. I spent a year there but I was not happy. I left the place and retuned back to Bombay.

Even though I tried to become a priest I couldn't experience God. As soon as I left the seminary my brothers and sisters-in-law wanted me to get married. I was not ready for marriage and so finally I reached a decision to open a factory in Bombay. However even this did not give me any satisfaction instead my desire to experience God grew stronger. Not knowing what to do I started visiting famous Swamis and Gurus all over India. I visited many Ashrams. I met preachers of different communities. Every Monday I used to go to Shiv Temple, Tuesday - Friday I went to Kali and Durga devi temple and Saturdays to Hanuman temple. I used to get up at 3:30 a.m , have a cold water dip, do kriya yoga etc. although I was a catholic I completely stopped going to Church. Some of India's famous Swamis used to come to my house and take me with them to their ashrams.I used to go with them to the jungles and stay for 10-15 days with them.

Because of my yoga practices, I started getting some psychic gifts But my Hindu guru's kept telling me that if I get stuck with the spiritual gifts, then I will not be able to experience the 'giver of the gifts, i.e. God. So I continued in my search for God. I was looking for a Guru who would accept me as his disciple. A well known Hath-Yogi from Malad, Bombay had told me several times that Jesus is my Guru and that I have to become a priest. My mom began to get worried about me seeing me running after so many gurus.

A 108 year old guru from a village called Zarap, near Sawantwadi [Maharashtra], gave me a guru mantra (a chant) and asked me to recite and see its power. I started reciting the mantra. I was very happy and recited that mantra religiously. I had already spent two and a half years since I had left my seminary and seeking God following the Hindu guru's. Nothing seemed to be happening. Infact I was experiencing some sort of turmoil within me.

On 7th of June, 1994 I was out for an evening walk and was passing through my parish church (St. Teresa's Church) in Bandra. I saw the board 'Jesus heals'. A force dragged me into the Church. I was not aware of the charismatic movement at that time. When I entered I noticed that Fr. Joe Santiago from Poona Diocese was conducting the prayer services. People were screaming on the top of their voices shouting 'Alleluia' before the exposed Blessed Sacrament. I found all this a bit funny. I found my self misplaced there and was just waiting for this prayer service to get over so that I could get out of all that madness.

At 9 pm, the priest asked all of us to stand up and pray so that the Lord may touch us. I too got up casually looking all around with curiosity. And lo... what happens....Suddenly I saw a ball of light on the altar. The light entered into my heart and I fell down. I was embraced and engulfed with that light. I instantly recognized the light. IT WAS JESUS. Jesus was right in front of me. I could hear His voice saying "I am the Master you are looking for. I have a plan for you to become a priest; go to Gujarat and I have a plan for you there". I could experience the light for 10 minutes. I could experience a power entering my body and another power leaving my body. I was getting transformed. Like 'Saul was becoming Paul'.

After the prayers I found myself a changed person. I came home and for the first time in my life I started reading Bible with devotion. I miraculously came in touch with my college friend Ralph, who was into healing ministry. I joined his prayer group and there I received the gift of tongues and the gift of healing.
Having confirmed Gods call, I left my home once again to join priesthood. I went to Gujarat and met the Bishop of Ahmedabad and he accepted me in his diocese.

I was 28 years old when I joined. And today, I am 40, and have completed 4...years of my priesthood and I continue to serve our LORD in His vineyard. Praise the Lord. Many are the wonders he has worked in my life thereafter and continues to work everyday of my life. Today I am convinced beyond any doubt that our Lord is the true God and also the only living God. Thank you Jesus Praise you Jesus.

I would like to conclude my testimony by stating that if any of you are searching for the one true living God then it stops at Jesus. I have been through the arduous path and convinced myself beyond any doubt.

John 14:15 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (HOLY SPIRIT), to be with you for ever.

After surviving ISIS, Myriam thanks God and teaches the world a lesson on forgivenes

Watch Myriam as she shares her story of being displaced from Qaraqoush, Iraq by #ISIS, and forgives and sings a song of gratitude to God for His protection

10 Signs Christianity Is on the Rise

 March 09, 2015

It may look different in the future, but that's a good thing.

Christianity is a dying relic of an ancient past. The Internet is killing it. Science is killing it. Western sophistication is killing it. Right?

 Wrong.

 In many ways, Christianity is on the rise as never before—worldwide, and in America. Here are the ways we can tell:

1. Christianity is growing by leaps and bounds worldwide.

 The research shows Christian numbers rising, not falling worldwide. "Christianity should enjoy a worldwide boom in the coming decades, but the vast majority of believers will be neither white nor European, nor Euro-American,” writes Philip Jenkins of Baylor University, author of The Next Christendom.
In America, this will mean that as white descendants of Europeans fall off a demographic cliff, they will be replaced by the growing Southern Christian and Catholic populations.

2. Nominal Christianity is dead—and that’s a good thing.

 Meanwhile, in America, research showing that Christian numbers are tanking is a little misleading. What it really shows is a fall in the number of people who call themselves Christians but have never darkened the door of a Church. We no longer feel we have to dishonestly mark the “Christian” box, and we now feel it's okay to be honest and mark the “atheist” box—but this shows health rather than weakness.
 It is an interesting dynamic: In the West, the nominal Christianity that was inherited unthinkingly is disappearing and in the East and South, real Christianity is a rapidly growing grassroots movement. Books like God's Century by Monica Duffy Toft of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and God Is Back by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge of The Economist are trying to figure out what that will mean.

3. The Church is promoting the sacraments.

 But the nominal Catholic rate still causes problems. We know various polls place Mass attendance at various small percentages. What we don’t know is the extent to which they merely show that nominal Catholics still mark “Catholic” on polls.
 Another thing we also know is that the Church is promoting the first necessary step to increased Mass attendance: Confession. The Vatican’s 24 hours for the Lord March 13-14 is doing this church-wide, seeing promotions pay off in Great Britain, while events such as Chicago’s Festival of Forgiveness and Philadelphia's confession push are doing the same in America.

4. Eucharistic Adoration is on the rise.

 A good measure of whether Catholics are more than nominal is Eucharistic adoration. To spend time with Jesus Christ is the very definition of a Christian, after all. Adoration is offered at 7,094 U.S. parishes as listed by RealPresence.com. In 2005, that website’s president, Mike Mortimer, estimated that there were 715 perpetual adoration chapels in America. The Vatican now estimates that there are 1,100 perpetual adoration chapels in America.
 The worldwide church is led by a man who prays a daily Eucharistic hour and the Church in America is actively promoting Eucharistic adoration through events like the Eucharistic Adoration Novena.

5. Catholic youth movements have never been stronger.

 A movement’s future is only as strong as its next generation, and so for Catholicism to have a future it has to have a youth movement. Catholicism does. Our most recent World Youth Day attracted 3.7 million—one of the 30-year event’s largest gatherings ever.
 At home, we see a pro-life force largely led by young American Catholics, which dwarfs almost every other activist movement. Tens of thousands of Catholic young people descend on Washington each January for the March for Life, and you can add to that the young people at the 115 smaller marches for life throughout the United States and the nationwide life chain events in October.

6. … and the Catholic youth movements are linked to higher education.

 When I went to college, people referred to “the hardcore four” or “thriving five” Catholic colleges faithful to the magisterium. Now I work at a college and we continually hear new stories of schools trying to reclaim their Catholic identity in order to compete. Today, the National Catholic Register’s latest Catholic Identity Guide lists more than 30 schools that are promoting the strength of their Catholic identity.
 At the same time, new Catholic centers at state schools are trying to make inroads in hostile environments that dismantle students’ faith: The Seek 2015 conference of FOCUS (The Fellowship of Catholic University Students) attracted nearly 10,000 college students this year.

7. New, young vocations.

 Another phenomenon you can’t help but notice in Catholic circles is hidden from official numbers: The new young vocations. We see them at Benedictine College all the time—in our classrooms, in our Abbey, and among our alumni. But because of the huge numbers of elderly priests and nuns, the total numbers of priests and nuns keeps dropping in America.
 Research does show that millennials are “even more likely” to consider vocations than the generation before them, and anecdotal evidence shows that there was a Benedict Effect before there was any Francis Effect in vocations, and that priests under 35 represent a sign of hope in the Church.

8. Strong, engaged Bishops.

 Complaining about bishops is a pastime as old as the Church itself. It can be done in a helpful way (see the letters of St. Paul in your New Testament) and in an unhelpful way (as in the joke about the part of the bishop-making ceremony where the candidate’s spine is removed).
 But the 21st century has seen a huge change in the way American bishops engage the world. It first became noticeable with the candidacy of John Kerry, a radically pro-abortion politician whose nominal Catholicism forced bishops to take a stand. Then came the rise of Obama and the HHS mandate—which every U.S. bishop denounced. Finally, new strong bishops are emerging from what Thomas Peters calls the “Benedict Bishop Bump.”

9. A new interest in Scripture.

 Many people predicted when the Da Vinci Code was popular that the long-term effect of the novel’s crazy anti-Scriptural premise would be to increase interest in Scripture. That paradoxical prediction has proven true. In the wake of the Da Vinci Code, a new interest in Scripture can be seen in popular books, television miniseries, and major Hollywood movies.

10. The witness of the martyrs.

 Last but not least by a long shot is the witness of the martyrs. The beautiful way Christians are showing their deep faith and love for Jesus Christ, as I've said before, will grow the Church just as it did in the former atheist communist bloc, and indeed as it did in the early Church.
 The bottom line is that if Christianity is true, then we can expect it will continue to rise and not die. If it's not true, then it will certainly die—and the sooner, the better. But since Jesus Christ really did die and rise and leave us the sacraments, don’t expect it to go away any time soon.

Tom Hoopes is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

Jesus Christ's childhood home 'discovered' by British academic

3 March 2015.  By Martin Bagot

Dr Ken Dark said that the humble first century home in Nazareth, northern Israel, could have been where Mary and Joseph brought up the son of God

A British archaeologist has identified what he believes could have been the house where Jesus was raised. Dr Ken Dark said that the humble first century home in Nazareth, northern Israel, could have been where Mary and Joseph brought up the son of God.

The Reading University archaeologist said that an ancient text described precisely how it was located between two tombs and below a church. Clerics from the Crusader period and the Byzantine era also put the ruins in the cellar of their churches, suggesting that it was of great significance and needed to be protected. In an article Professor Dark said that there was ‘no good reason’ why the courtyard style house was not the boyhood home of Jesus.

He has been researching the ruins since 2006 and published his findings in Biblical Archaeological Review, a respected journal.
Is this Jesus' home?

Holy site: An exterior view of the house believed to be where Jesus lived as a young boy

Should Dr Dark’s analysis be correct, it will solve a mystery which has baffled Christians for centuries. They believe that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth when the angel Gabriel revealed that Mary would give birth to the son of God, a baby to be named Jesus. According to Dr Dark, the house is located beneath the Sisters of Nazareth Convent which is across the road from Church of Annunciation in Nazareth.

He describes it as having been cut out of a limestone hillside and having a series of rooms and a stairway. One of the original doorways has survived, as has part of the original chalk floor. Overall the design was typical of early Roman settlements in the Galilee, Dr Dark says. The house was first identified as a site of special significance in the 1880s after the chance discovery of an ancient cistern at the convent, after which the nuns ordered an excavation.

Jesuit priest Henri Senes carried out more work in 1936 and then Dr Dark’s team followed up in 2006, discovering broken cooking pots, a spindle whorl and limestone artifacts.

The limestone items suggest a Jewish family lived there as Jews believed that limestone could not be impure. Dr Dark also found that subsequent generations after the first century took great care to look after the site In the article he wrote: ‘Great efforts had been made to encompass the remains of this building within the vaulted cellars of both the Byzantine and Crusader churches, so that it was thereafter protected. ‘Both the tombs and the house were decorated with mosaics in the Byzantine period, suggesting that they were of special importance, and possibly venerated’.

The key piece of evidence linking the site to Jesus is pilgrim text called ‘De Locus Sanctis’ written in 670 AD by abbot Adomnàn of Iona, the island off the West coast of Scotlan, It was supposedly based on a pilgrimage made to Nazareth made by the Frankish bishop Arculf and talks about a church ‘where once there was the house in which the Lord was nourished in his infancy.
Discovery: The key piece of evidence linking the site to Jesus is pilgrim text called ‘De Locus Sanctis’

In the article Dr Dark says that the text describes two churches in Nazareth, one of which was the Church of Annunciation. He writes: ‘The other stood nearby and was built near a vault that also contained a spring and the remains of two tombs. ‘Between these two tombs was the house in which Jesus was raised. From this is derived the more recent name for the church that Adomnàn described’. The Sisters of Nazareth Convent matches this because there is evidence of a large Byzantine church with a spring and two tombs in its crypt, Dr Dark writes.

Rex Remains of a residential building from the time of Jesus was exposed in the heart of Nazareth were discovered in an archaeological excavation of the Israel Antiquities Authority near the Church of the Annunciation. The house he believes was Jesus’ boyhood home stands in between the two tombs which also matches with Adomnàn’s account. Dr Dark, a specialist in first century and Christian archaeology, writes: ‘Was this the house where Jesus grew up? It is impossible to say on archaeological grounds. ‘On the other hand, there is no good archaeological reason why such an identification should be discounted’.

The last attempt to identify the house where Jesus grew up was in 2009 when archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority found another 1st century home they believed had been occupied by a Jewish family. However they were only able to say that Jesus may have lived near to the site as they did not have the link to the ancient texts that Professor Dark found.

Yoga without ethics: just empty posturing?

Can the fitness fad live up to its traditional roots?

Zac Alstin | 5 March 2015
Bikram Choudhury teaches Yoga class

Bikram Choudhury, founder of the popular Bikram Yoga, is currently facing six civil lawsuits from female former-students alleging rape or sexual assault.  Bikram Yoga is famous for its 90 minute classes carried out in 41 °C (105 °F) heat at 40% humidity.  First introduced in the 1970s, Bikram Yoga has made its namesake a wealthy man with a net worth reportedly in the billions. With several dozen Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, an 8,000 square foot Beverley Hills mansion, and devoted students spending thousands of dollars just to train with their hero for a week: the swearing, name-dropping, speedo-wearing guru hardly fits the popular image of what a master Yogi should be.

Yet Yoga in its many, varied forms has become so popular in the West that – along with meditation – it has even made its way into corporate environments, promoting physical and mental health in the workplace.  But the mainstream adoption of these ancient religious practices is not without its critics. Buddhist psychotherapist Dr Miles Neale coined the terms “McMindfulness and Frozen Yoga” to describe the denaturing and secularisation of these practices, stripped of their important ethical content for the sake of mainstream palatability:

“What we see in America today, in both the yoga boom and mindfulness fad, is an overemphasis on training in meditation (samadhi) to the exclusion of the trainings in wisdom (prajna) and ethics (shila)...
American culture is fascinated by quick fixes, glamorous fads and celebrity teachers: yoga and mindfulness are no exception to this trend. What’s next? Drive-through yoga? Meditation on demand? We are experiencing a feeding frenzy of spiritual practices that provide immediate nutrition but no long-term sustenance.”

Even the overtly irreligious expressions of the Bikram Yoga founder can’t take the spiritual shine off the mysterious Indian practice.  According to Choudhury “Religion is the biggest piece of **** created in all time!", yet civil lawsuits describe:

“a cult-like atmosphere where the charismatic Mr Choudhury would tell young women training to be instructors they had been "touched by God" before forcing himself upon them.”

In fact what most Westerners know as “Yoga” is more accurately described simply as “asanas” or postures. Traditional Yoga (from Sanskrit yoga, think “yoke”) is a spiritual discipline aimed at union with the divine.  The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, compiled around 400 AD, include eight aspects or “limbs” of this spiritual discipline:

Yama – abstaining from violence, deceit, covetousness, sexual activity, and possessiveness.
Niyama – observing cleanliness of body and mind, contentment, austerity, scriptural study, and worship of God.
Asana – the postures required to maintain physical health as a support to the Yogic discipline.
Pranayama – breathing exercises.
Pratyahara – withdrawal of the senses from the external world.
Dharana – mental concentration.
Dhyana – steadfast meditation.
Samadhi – the final blissful goal of meditation.

It’s hard to imagine Yoga being quite so popular in the West if the first two limbs were emphasised over and above the promise of a “taught and toned Yoga body” with intimations of feel-good meditative bliss. Likewise, it’s hard to imagine Choudhury having as much cachet in a society where ethics extends Yogic discipline beyond the merely physical.

But in our self-consciously secular environment it’s hard to give credence to the idea that mysterious-looking postures might be less effective than onerous moral injunctions, let alone religious observances.  Without a trace of irony, many Westerners would rather twist themselves into the most difficult and unlikely contortions if only to avoid the conclusion that self-denial, moral rectitude, and religious observance might be the genuine path to a better way of life.
 

Raising saints, not rabbits

Moving beyond mere biology is essential to the pope's teachings on the family.
Posted on February 17, 2015,

By Fr William Grimm - Tokyo:

When Pope Francis commented that people should not reproduce "like rabbits," some who read his comment were upset that he seemed to be attacking large families even though he was raised in one himself.
That is probably one reason that lately he has extolled the wonders of large families and criticized the "selfishness" of some who choose to be childless.
What might seem to be mutually contradictory positions are accurate, in fact, when viewed in a larger context because, ultimately, family size is not a matter of arithmetic. Celibates who "have no children to speak of"  are too often prone to view human reproduction in ways that seem more like animal husbandry than a sharing of human life.

Insisting that every act of coitus must be open to the breeding of children while ignoring the fact that human reproduction entails much, much more than simply the production of fetuses smacks more of the barnyard than of human
society. Human reproduction is not simply biology. Giving birth is the beginning of a process that takes years, even decades. Children must be fed, housed, socialized and educated. They must have access to an environment in which their health and safety are protected. They must be equipped to one day take their places as members of society, and even as parents themselves. In short, they must be enabled to exercise their dignity as children of God.

There is no ideal size for a family that will enable children born into it to achieve that dignity. Size is not so important as quality. Much depends upon what counts as a dignified life in particular societies and circumstances. When food and access to medical care are severely limited, giving birth to more children than can be supported is, in many cases, simply condemning babies to a short life of suffering. Those who survive are often handicappe intellectually and physically by deprivation in infancy and childhood.

Even in situations where biological life is not threatened, there are still the demands of social life. If, for example, a family has too many children to provide them with an adequate education, then, though they may manage to stay alive, their quality of life compared to the opportunities their society offers and the expectations it will place upon them will be compromised. However, the biggest challenges that parents and guardians face are not material.

Raising children from bawling infancy through exhausting childhood and frustrating adolescence to the point where they have children of their own requires the sacrifice of parents' or guardians' time, energy, interests and personal comfort until the day they can say, as my mother once did, "Grandchildren are a mother's best revenge." Until then, there are intellectual, emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual demands involved in child rearing. The rewards of being a parent or guardian come precisely in responding to those demands.

The limits of what a family can manage differ from case to case. Some families are joyfully, healthily large. Others are joyfully, healthily small. Caring for a child with special physical, emotional or psychological needs may compromise the care provided to his or her siblings. In such cases, the sacrifices the entire family makes can be a source of growth in love and virtue for all. For other families, though, responding to the needs of one child requires limiting the number of others. But even when no child in the family has what are generally called "special needs," the usual needs of children can exhaust the limits of their parents' or guardians' or siblings' ability to provide for them. In many situations, families can rely on relatives and friends or organizations or governments for assistance, but that is not always the case.

Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae (called by the irreverent "Paul's Epistle to the Fallopians") proscribes certain methods of birth control, but also recognizes that circumstances may make such control necessary. "With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time."

I once heard a speaker ask, "If you die tonight, will your children go to heaven?" That is the glory and responsibility of being a Christian parent. We must not reproduce like rabbits, but like men and women who will raise up saints. To do that requires the humility to know our limitations, the intelligence to not attempt more than we can handle, and the faith to know that God will work with us in fulfilling our humbly intelligent choices.

Maryknoll Fr William Grimm is publisher of ucanews.com, based in Tokyo.
 

Holy Land tour planned for priests, Religious

A $2,500 fee includes expenses during the pilgrimage, as well as return airfare from the airports of Bangalore, Cochin, Delhi, and Mumbai in India.
February 11, 2015

Plans are underway to have a 20-day Holy Land pilgrimage for Indian priests and Religious aiming to help them renew lives and become more effective in their ministry. The Franciscans of the Holy Land and the Salesian Pontifical University of Jerusalem are jointly organizing the pilgrimage titled: "Hearts Aflame: walking with Jesus in his land." It is scheduled for April 21–May 10. "The highlights of the program are a thorough orientation by Biblical experts, a detailed pilgrimage in the footprints of the disciples to the nooks and corners of Holy Land and a encountering a spiritual retreat experience," Fr. Tojy Jose, OFM, one of the organizers.

Fr. Jose told Catholic News Agency that the pilgrimage is meant to help priests retreat into a "spiritual Emmaus." A $2,500 fee includes expenses during the pilgrimage, as well as return airfare from the airports of Bangalore, Cochin, Delhi, and Mumbai in India. Fr. Jose emphasized the program is meant to integrate study and prayer, with time alloted for personal study, reflection, and prayer.

Cardinal George Alencherry, Syro-Malabar Major Archbishop of Ernakulam-Angamaly, endorsed the pilgrimage, calling it "a beautiful program" and asking that "may many be attracted by this project and let all the organizers succeed in executing this project." Fr. Jose explained that seminars will be held in English by eminent scholars such as Fr. David Neuhaus, SJ; Fr. Lionel Goh, OFM; Fr. Piotr Zelazko; Fr. Pier Giorgio Gianazza, SDB.

Topics discussed will include biblical history and geography, Jewish culture and politics, early Christian history, priestly renewal, and spirituality of the Holy Land. Meetings with Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem and with the Franciscan Custos of the Holy Land are also scheduled. A retreat on discipleship will be held at the site of the Visitation and the birthplace of St. John the Baptist.

Delhi archbishop: Indian election result ‘a vote for change’

by Conor Gaffey
posted  Wednesday, 11 Feb 2015

Archbishop criticises lack of government response after anti-Catholic violence mars election

Indian prelates, including Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay (centre), conduct a candelight protest against recent attacks on Catholic churches (CNS)

The Archbishop of Delhi has said the Indian government failed to deliver on its promises following the victory of an anti-corruption party in the state elections. Speaking to AsiaNews, Archbishop Anil Joseph Thomas Couto claimed the election had been marred by anti-Catholic violence after churches were vandalised and a peaceful protest was broken up by heavy-handed police. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which translates as “the common man”, won 67 of the 70 assembly seats in the Delhi state elections on Tuesday. Its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, will be the new chief minister of Delhi. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was left with just three seats.

Archbishop Couto said: “The result is a vote for change. Even after eight months, the Modi government has failed to act well, nor has it fulfilled its promises. “The people of Delhi are disappointed and that’s why they wanted to give Arvind Kejriwal a chance as the new chief minister.” Since December, five different churches in the Indian capital territory have been vandalised. Last week, the Church of St Alphonsa was broken into and sacred hosts were scattered on the altar and the floor.

A peaceful protest against the attacks on churches was broken up by police last week. AsiaNews reported that Delhi police beat and detained dozens of priests, nuns and laypeople, including women and children, during the silent march outside the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.

Archbishop Couto said: “These elections were negatively affected by the attacks on churches. “Five attacks on five different churches and the BJP, which was in power, stood by in silence. “What’s worse, it said that what happened was normal, that in many other places similar incidents were happening.”

The result constitutes a major setback to the BJP and Mr Modi, who has enjoyed widespread public support since winning the 2014 general election. Archbishop Couto said: “The people of Delhi voted against the BJP and its attempt to polarise the voters in the name of religion. “The result of these elections is a message to the Prime Minister: he should think seriously about his behaviour.”

In a separate incident, India’s Catholic bishops protested last week against a government decision to deny visas to two Vatican officials. Archbishop Arthur Roche, former Bishop of Leeds and now secretary at the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and Archbishop Portase Rugambwa, president of the Pontifical Mission Societies, were due to address a conference of Catholic bishops in Bangalore on the subject of “Life and Liturgy” but had to cancel their trip at the last minute.
 

7,000 Christians faced threats in 2014, reports Catholic body

Madhya Pradesh (23) and Chhattisgarh (19), both BJP-ruled states, along with Congress-ruled Karnataka (14) account for nearly half of all incidents across India.
Posted on February 10, 2015,

Mumbai:
The Mumbai-based Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) says it has documented 120 attacks on Christians and their institutions across India in 2014, with over 7,000 Christians facing threats. The Hindustan Times said the CSF report, made available to the newspaper, lists five murders across India in little over a year.

Madhya Pradesh (23) and Chhattisgarh (19), both BJP-ruled states, along with Congress-ruled Karnataka (14) account for nearly half of all incidents across India. Between December 2013 and December 2014, 7,000 Christians faced threats, violence and displacement. These included 1,600 women and 500 children. 300 members of the clergy and community leadership were also targeted during this period. The report also expresses concern over certain moves of the Union government such as making Christmas ‘good governance day’ and foreign minister Sushma Swaraj’s call to make Bhagwad Gita the national book of India.

Joseph Dias, general secretary of CSF, told HT that the details of the report had been shared with human rights groups across the world. The CSF’s annual reports and their global reach offer some clues into the circumstances that led President Barack Obama to call for greater religious tolerance in India.

The CSF’s 2013 report, which counted 4,000 offences against Christians in India, was used by Indian Christian groups in California to lobby for minority protection as one of the terms of reference for India-US talks. In a February 2013 memorandum, these groups sought a “house resolution that would make human rights and justice for religious minorities a priority in US-India talks.” Former judge of Bombay and Karnataka high courts Michael Saldanha told HT, “Representatives of countries such as France, UK, Australia, Italy as well as the Vatican have approached us for information. These countries have then proceeded to take these matters up with the Indian government.”
 

Dachau is the largest cemetery of Catholic priests in the world. The concentration camp for priests

2015-02-02 L’Osservatore Romano

“Between 1938 and 1945 2,579 Catholic priests, seminarians and monks, together with 141 Protestant and Orthodox priests were deported to Dachau. And 1,034 died in the camp”, recalls Guillaume Zeller, the author of the book La Baraque des prêtres, Dachau, 1938-1945 (Paris, Éditions Tallandier, 2015, 384 pages, 21.90 euros). Interviewed by Guillaume Perrault of Le Figaro, the author explains that the Vatican was unable to stop them from being deported but succeeded in having them sent to Dachau, “even though they were from all over Europe: Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, France and Italy”.

Many German priests were arrested for having opposed Hitler’s euthanasia programme. While, according the reports sent by Reihard Heydrich, others, mostly Slavic priests were arrested by Einsatzgruppen in Poland in 1940, as they were considered to be dangerous elite figures. The priests in France were targeted instead for having actively participated in the Resistance. These men of the Church, continues Zeller, experienced the same suffering as their lay prison mates, however they were able to maintain “incredible dignity”, even though the Nazi soldiers continuously sought to brutalize and humiliate those interned in the camp.

For as much as Primo Levi was an atheist, he recognized the admirable moral and intellectual stature of the rabbis deported to Auschwitz. “Even if the circumstances were different”, the author continues, “the same could be said of the priests in Dachau”.

Locked in the camps, the priests forced themselves to maintain and strengthen their faith, hope and charity. Prayer, sacraments and support to the sick and dying, secret theology lessons and pastoral formation, faithfulness to the Church hierarchy allowed them to safeguard their humanity, recalling also the Church persecutions in the centuries before. One of the Nazi strategies was to turn the detainees against each other, but the majority of priests did not fall into this trap. Rather there were many stories of heroism and holiness. During the winter of 1944 and 1945, the prisoners were wiped out by a typhus epidemic. “While the SS soldiers and kaps would not enter the infected barracks, dozens of priests voluntarily entering, knowing full well of the risks they were running by tending to and consoling the dying. Many died doing this”.

The book also includes the story of the German seminarian Karl Leisner whose clandestine ordination in articulo mortis was held in a building used as chapel. Bishop Gabriel Piguet of Clermont-Ferrand, France, who performed the ordination, was a maréchaliste or a supporter of Marshal Pétain, head of the Pro-German Vichy regime from 1940 to 1944. Piguet was deported to Dachau for hiding Jews and Yad Vashem has given him the title, Righteous Among the Nations.

During the pontificates of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and now Pope Francis, “56 religious who died in the concentration camps have been beatified, after evidence emerged of their natural or Christian virtues of of an exemplary or heroic nature. And the Dachau camp remains the largest cemetery of Catholic priests in the world”. (Silvia Guidi)

SAUDI ARABIA - A forest of crosses and names of martyrs in the desert of Saudi Arabia

A Franco-Saudi archaeological team is responsible for the discovery. Prof Frédéric Imbert dated the graffiti to 470-475, a time when anti-Christian persecution began, culminating under the usurper Yusuf. Even the Qur'an refers to it indirectly. The findings show how far Christianity had spread at the time, until the arrival of Islam.

Beirut (AsiaNews/Agencies) - A forest of crosses engraved in the rocks of the desert of Saudi Arabia is a sign of the presence of a vibrant Christian community around the fifth century AD.

Unearthed by a Saudi-French archaeological team, the graffiti include inscriptions with a number of biblical and Christian names, perhaps those of martyrs killed during a wave of persecution in the fifth century.

L'Orient-Le Jour reported that Prof Frédéric Imbert, a professor at the University of Aix-Marseille and a member of the team, presented his findings at a conference at the American University of Beirut on the rock engravings of Jabal Kawkab ("Star Mountain"), in Najran, southern Saudi Arabia. The area is called Bi'r Hima or Abar Hima, names "that refer to places with wells known since ancient times."

According to Imbert, an epigrapher, the area is located on the route "that connected Yemen to Najran" where caravans could be resupplied in water. Inscriptions were found with crosses, scattered over a one-square kilometre. Some inscriptions appear to be in a local version of Aramaic, a pre-Islamic form of Arabic, Nabataean-Arabic to be more precise. The inscriptions have been dated to the reign of Shurihbil Yakkuf, who controlled southern Arabia in 470-475. The persecution of Christians appears to have started under his rule.

It is interesting to note that the names Marthad and Rabi were found inscribed on the crosses. Both are on the list of martyrs of Najran, in the so-called Book of Himyarites. In order to understand crosses and rock inscriptions, it is necessary to know that back in the 3rd century AD, southern Arabia was ruled by the ?imyarite dynasty, which lasted for about 150 years. In order to maintain its neutrality between the two great powers of the time, the Byzantine and Persian empires, its kings chose Judaism as their religion. However, Christianity began to spread in Arabia in the fourth century. By "the sixth century, it reached the Gulf region, Najran and the Yemen coast".

The missionary activities of Christians from Iran's Sassanid Empire and Monophysite Christians from Syria hostile to the Council of Chalcedon (on Christ's dual nature) favoured the spread of Christianity. Two Syriac bishops, probably from what is now Iraq, were consecrated in 485 and 519. Later, Yusuf (Dhu Nuwas) seized power in the Kingdom of ?imyar, ordering the massacre of Christians in Najran, an event reported in several Christian chronicles, with a reference even in the Qur'an, in Shura Al-Bur?j (The Celestial Stations).
When Christian survivors sent an appeal to Khaleb, King of Ethiopia, he organised a military expedition to rescue the persecuted. Yusuf's army was defeated and the usurper himself was killed. A Christian kingdom was established in Arabia, as an Ethiopian protectorate, until it was conquered by Islam. For Frédéric Imbert, the crosses and the inscriptions are "the oldest book of the Arabs," written "on desert stones," a "page of Arab and Christian history".
 

Obama calls for religious tolerance, respect for religious freedom in India

Catholic World News - January 29, 2015

In a visit to India, now governed by a Hindu nationalist party, President Barack Obama issued a call for greater respect for religious freedom. “We remember the wisdom of Gandhiji, who said, ‘For me, the different religions are beautiful flowers from the same garden, or they are branches of the same majestic tree,’” said Obama. “Branches of the same majestic tree.”

He added: Our freedom of religion is written into our founding documents. It’s part of America’s very first amendment. Your Article 25 says that all people are “equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion.” In both our countries -- in all countries -- upholding this fundamental freedom is the responsibility of government, but it's also the responsibility of every person.

In our lives, Michelle and I have been strengthened by our Christian faith. But there have been times where my faith has been questioned -- by people who don’t know me -- or they’ve said that I adhere to a different religion, as if that were somehow a bad thing. Around the world, we’ve seen intolerance and violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to be standing up for their faith, but, in fact, are betraying it. No society is immune from the darkest impulses of man. And too often religion has been used to tap into those darker impulses as opposed to the light of God. … every person has the right to practice their faith how they choose, or to practice no faith at all, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination. (Applause.)

The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts. And it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe, and rejoice in the beauty of every soul. And nowhere is that more important than India. Nowhere is it going to be more necessary for that foundational value to be upheld. India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith -- so long as it's not splintered along any lines -- and is unified as one nation.
 

Bishops ask Modi to urgently intervene to save secular India

The Christians of this country need assurance from the Government that we are protected and secure and safe in our motherland.
January 22, 2015, 8:53 AM
Cardinal Cleemis opens the consultation with a prayer

Officials of the Indian bishops in a special consultation have asked Indian Prime Minister Narendara Modi to urgently intervene and stop activities that challenge nation's secular nature. They urged Modi "to urgently intervene and take appropriate action to stop incidents that pose big threat to the unity of this secular nation," said a press release from Indian Catholic Bishops' Conference.

Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Catholicos, president of the conference, presided over the special consultation on Monday in New Delhi. Cardinals Oswald Gracias, Telesphore Toppo and George Alencherry also attended it along with CBCI Office-Bearers, representatives of Conference of Religious, laity youth and women.

The unfortunate incidents that happened in the past few months in various parts of our country have hurt the sentiments of the Christian community, said the press release referring to several cases of attacks against Christians and churches in India. Such events have "shaken the faith in the secular fabric of our nation. The shocking incidents that have taken place against Churches, clergy and laity in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi have caused great concern for the Christian community," it said.

The recent controversies in the name of religious reconversions portray a negative image about India. Communal polarization and the bid to homogenize India are posing threat to all minorities – women, dalits, and all linguistic, cultural and religious minorities, it said. The reconversion programs of Hindu hardline organizations called Ghar Wapsi programmes, the saffranisation of education and culture, and the demands for a Hindu Rashtra are challenging to the secular ethos of our beloved country.

"The Christians of this country need assurance from the Government that we are protected and secure and safe in our motherland. We express our strong concern on the aforementioned issues," said the press release signed by Conference's Deputy Secretary General Fr. Joseph Chinnayyan. "Putting an end to such dangerous tendencies is inevitable for the growth and progress of our great nation," said asserting Christian recommitment "for the progress and development of our nation."
 

Persecution report highlights attacks on India's Christians

Prime Minister Narendra Modi must take action to stop persecution, critics say.

January 21, 2015

New Delhi:
At least five Christians, including an 11-year-old child, were killed and around 7,000 people experienced persecution during 2014, according to a new report that tracks persecution against Christians in India. The Christian Persecution Report, released this week by the Mumbai-based Catholic Secular Forum (CSF), states that about 300 clergymen and Christian leaders were targeted in incidents of violence around the country last year.

The report’s authors are critical of what they see as a swing toward conservatism and fundamentalism in India, a Hindu-majority country that is nevertheless wildly diverse. “Some right-wing forces have become active since the pro-Hindu Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) took over the reins of the country,” Joseph Dias, CSF’s general secretary, told ucanews.com.

The report claims that roughly 273,000 minorities had been re-converted to Hinduism in one part of northern India’s massive Uttar Pradesh state. In October, Hindu fundamentalists attacked twelve Christian villagers in central India’s Chhattisgarh state. Earlier in the year, 50 villages in the same district passed resolutions outlawing non-Hindu religious ceremonies. These alarming problems have led the report’s authors to label Chhattisgarh as India’s worst place to live as a Christian. “Such incidents prove that the right-wing forces in the country want to make India a Hindutva hub, and there is a hate campaign going on against the minorities in the country,” CSF chairman Michael Saldanha told ucanews.com.

Saldanha said the government must ensure that Christians in India are safe from attacks and persecution. Instead, the report says, persecution often goes unrecorded because victims are too afraid to complain. Samuel Jaykumar of the National Council of Churches in India said the government’s lethargy in investigating persecution claims will see the problem persist. “Incidents of persecution coming to light every now and then from across the country are very disturbing but we have to face the reality that this trend is going to continue due to the government’s inaction against the attackers,” he told ucanews.com. “Christians in the country have a sense of fear since the BJP government took over. We are not panicked but worried.”?

The CSF report appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take strong action against fundamentalism and to stop acts of persecution against the Christian community. However, Modi is seen by many religious minorities as a Hindu nationalist who has stayed silent on the issue since coming to office last year. For example, church leaders have pointed a finger at Hindu fundamentalists for a string of recent attacks on churches in Delhi, including last month’s torching of Saint Sebastian's Church, which caused significant damage. But Modi has not spoken out about the issue, despite appeals from Christian groups.

However, Hindu groups at the time said it was unfair to blame them for specific attacks, calling them “small and isolated incidents”. “We do not endorse any act of vandalism and it will not be fair to put blame on organizations or individuals if some individuals have been found involved in some incidents,” Ravinder Kapur, a BJP leader, told ucanews.com.
 

Second Priest from Zeliang community ordained in Poilwa Village - North Eastern India

 Attendees of the ordination programme for the second priest from Poilwa village and the Zeliang community.

KOHIMA, JANUARY 4 (MExN): Reverend Deacon Peuhausuiding Peter, MSFS, the second priest from Poilwa village and Zeliang tribe was ordained on January 4 by Most Rev. Dr. James Thoppil, Bishop of Kohima. “You are God’s Field, God’s building” (1Cor.3:9) is Fr. Peter’s priestly motto.

A press note informed that Deacon Peter was escorted to the venue of the Ordination by the villagers humming and singing the traditional tunes and firing of guns. Rev. Fr. Joseph MSFS, the first priest from the village and the tribe anchored the program while Rev. Fr. Kusam, the Parish Priest, accorded the words of welcome to the congregation, invited guests and dignitaries.

The bishop in his homily clearly enunciated the role of the priest as that of lifting Jesus so that Jesus may draw all people to Himself and give them eternal life. The bishop while thanking the family and village for offering their son to the service of God and the Church urged the people to support Fr. Peter though their constant prayers.

Fr. Peuhausuiding Peter MSFS is the 5th son of Lt. Heurangswang Hillary and Peugwapoilie of Poilwa village. He completed his schooling at All Saints Hr. Sec. School, Peren and did his Hr. Sec. School at SFS, Medziphema. He finished his Novitiate at Chabua, Assam and his Philosophical and Graduation at Suvidya College, Bangalore. He completed his Theological studies at Oriens Theological College, Shillong. He was ordained as deacon by His Grace Dominic Jala, Archbishop of Shillong.

The newly ordained priest gave his first priestly blessing to the people after the Holy Mass and thanked everyone present for this great event in his life.
 

Catholic population up 15 million worldwide

Woman praying at Catholic church in Myanmar. - AFP

(Vatican Radio- 31.12.2014)  The number of Catholics in the world has increased with growth registered across all five continents. The figures are taken by the Fides news agency from the latest edition of the Church’s Book of Statistics updated to 31 December 2012. These show that on that date the number of Catholics in the world stood at 1,228,621,000 with an overall increase of more than 15,000,000 compared to the previous year. The Americas and Africa registered the biggest increases followed by Asia, Europe and Oceania. The world percentage of Catholics stood at 17.49 %, a decrease of 0.01% compared to the end of 2011.

The total number of priests in the world increased by 895 to 414,313.  Europe once again registered the largest decrease (-1,375) followed by the Americas (-90) and Oceania (-80). In Africa the number of priests grew by 1,076 and in Asia by 1,364.

There was an overall decrease in the number of women religious worldwide, whose numbers dropped by 10,677 to 702,529. Once again Africa and Asia showed increases whilst Europe and the Americas showed the biggest decrease in the number of women religious.

The number of lay missionaries in the world is 362,488 with an overall decrease of 19,234. In the field of education, the Catholic Church runs 71,188 kindergartens, 95,246 primary schools and 43,783 secondary schools. Charity and healthcare centres in the world run by the Church are 115,352.
 

First new church in a century to be built in Turkey

Francis met Syriac Christians during his recent visit to Turkey (CNS)

Turkish government gives go-ahead to Syriac church in Istanbul, Turkey’s government has given the go ahead for the building of the first new church in the country for nearly a century.

The Syriac Orthodox church will be built in Ye?ilköy on the outskirts of Istanbul, in an area which already has Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic churches. The announcement was made last Friday, after Turkey’s prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Turkey’s religious leaders. He told Turkish media: “It is the first [new church] since the creation of the republic [in 1923]. Churches have been restored and reopened to the public, but no new church has been built until now.”

Turkey’s ruling party Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been accused of Islamising the country, with the country’s 100,000 strong Christian minority talking of an increasingly intolerant atmosphere. However the party are in some ways more tolerant to Christianity than Turkish republicans who tend to be hostile to all religious expression.

Before the outbreak of the First World War Turkey had a big Christian population and Constantinople a Christian majority, but large numbers of Armenians, Greeks and Syriac Christians were murdered or driven out in the conflict. Since then the surviving Christians have faced discrimination. But last Friday the prime minister insisted that AKP “does not discriminate between our citizens… the principle of equal citizenship continues to be our characteristic trait”.

The country’s 20,000 Syriac population, mostly in the south-east of the country, has now been swollen by large numbers of refugees fleeing from Syria and Iraq. The $1.5m cost of the new Virgin Mary Church is being met by the Syriac community.
 

Millions of Indian Christians Forced to Choose Between Faith and Government Benefits for 'Untouchables'

BY STOYAN ZAIMOV , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
December 29, 2014|9:13 am

India
(PHOTO: REUTERS/AMIT DAVE) A member of India's lowest caste "Dalits" shouts slogans as he is detained by police during a demonstration in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, April 27, 2014. Dozens of the Dalits on Sunday held a protest outside the venue of a yoga camp in the city demanding action against Indian yoga guru Baba Ramdev for his recent remarks that Dalits said were disrespectful.

Millions of Christians in India from the lowest caste system, known as "dalit," are being forced to choose between their faith and receiving government benefits available only to "untouchables," a report has said. The International Christian Concern noted on Sunday that there are close to 25 million Dalits across India who've converted to Christianity, but now must make the choice between maintaining their faith or benefiting from a government program that only helps them if they identify with their Hindu background. "This choice has significantly affected the constitutional right India's citizens have to freely choose a religion for themselves," the ICC reported. "It also has left millions of Dalits to have to decide between choosing to follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior and receiving government benefits that have the ability to take their families out of poverty. All added up, this discrimination has affected the official appearance of India's religious landscape."

The government benefits program in question concerned the Scheduled Caste Order of 1950, which is a way of determining who can receive government benefits and who cannot. Dalits, also referred to as "untouchables," make up India's lowest caste. Rev. Madhu Chandra Singh, an elder from a Baptist church, explained that although the Indian Supreme Court denies the situation, Christians from the Dalit caste suffer oppression both before and after their conversion. "After their conversion, Dalit Christians begin to suffer religious persecution from religious fanatics but also a denial of Scheduled Caste benefits because of the Schedule Caste Order of 1950, which I term a double discrimination of Dalit Christians," Singh said.

Several Christian Indians speak out in the report, noting that the government is forcing them to "lie" about who they are in order to receive the much needed benefits. Franklin Caesar, a Christian rights activists, added: "This system is against the fundamental rights provided to all India's citizens in the Constitution. The Presidential Order of 1950 has destroyed fundamental and constitutional rights of Dalits from Christian and Muslim backgrounds; the benefits must be delink from religion." The report noted that it is rumored that many millions more Dalits privately consider themselves Christians, but do not identify publicly as such, in fear of losing the government benefits.

Christians from various backgrounds face discrimination because of their faith in India. Earlier in December, a group of 30 Hindu radicals attacked a Christian pastor and 15 of his flock that had been singing Christmas carols in the city of Hyderabad. The attack left the pastor and four other Christians several injured, and was reportedly carried out because the radicals believed the Christians were attempting to forcefully convert people.

India (PHOTO: REUTERS/ADNAN ABIDI)
 

A woman holds her child as she stands outside her house at Dalit village of Bhaddi Kheda in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, January 15, 2012. Although she presides over one of the most poverty-plagued states of India -- its per-capita income is just above 50 percent of the national average -- Kumari Mayawati's extraordinary personal extravagance preserves a tradition set over the centuries by a succession of rulers in the plains of the river Ganges
.
 

Middle Eastern Christians: Battered, Violated, and Abused, Do They Have Any Chance of Survival?

 Justus Reid Weiner,
http://jcpa.org/article/middle-eastern-christians-battered/

Introduction

Throughout the Middle East, the birthplace of Christianity, Christians are facing pervasive and systematic persecution that is steadily increasing in its intensity and scope. A century ago, Christians represented some 20 percent of the population of the Middle East; today, that figure is estimated at 4 percent.  One leading academic authority in London has estimated that between one-half and two-thirds of Middle Eastern Christians have either been killed or left the area over the last century.  Reviewing a report on this trend, the Daily Telegraph led with the title: “Christianity ‘close to extinction’ in the Middle East.”

Pope Francis is expected to arrive in the Middle East this May, a region, he said, where Christians are “unjustly accused and are subjected to every type of violence.” Prince Charles recently expressed similar sentiments, saying, “It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are increasingly being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamist militants.”

In Muslim states throughout the Middle East the effects of this persecution are demonstrated by the drastically declining Christian population. While such censuses are by nature inexact, the rough picture they provide is extremely valuable in understanding the true magnitude of this phenomenon.

A century ago Christians represented some 20 percent of the population of the Middle East, today that figure is estimated at 4 percent.

In 1927, Egypt’s Christian population was 8.3 percent of the general population; by 2011, it was down to 5.3 percent. Similarly, Syria’s Christian population was found to be 9.7 percent of the population in 1970;  today, contesting reports find it to be somewhere between 4.4 to 10.2 percent. A similar trend is seen in Iraq, too, where the Christian population has dropped from 3.7 percent in 1970  to varying reports of 0.9 to 2.5 percent today.  According to another calculation, there were between 1.2 and 1.4 million Christians in Iraq in 1990. Today there are fewer than 200,000.  Iranian Christians have also suffered from this trend with the population declining from 0.9 percent in 1970  to 0.35 percent today.

As Pope Francis recently stated, the injustice of this persecution is compounded by the fact that it is occurring in states where “on paper, freedom and human rights are protected.”  This author has spoken at length regarding the great peril Christian life in the Middle East finds itself in. To that end, he has visited with top Congressmen, including then-Senators Santorum and Brownback; he has testified at congressional hearings attended by a wide range of public officials; met with Vice President Cheney’s national security staff in the West Wing of the White House; consulted and lectured at the State Department; and spoken at think tanks such as the Hudson Institute.

If these warnings are not heeded, and these states continue to violate the basic human rights obligations incumbent upon them, Christian life may cease to exist in the very place of its birth. This danger was recently voiced by British cabinet minister and Muslim, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who stated:

Across the world, people are being singled out and hounded out simply for the faith they hold….[Middle Eastern Christians] are rooted in their societies, adopting and even shaping local customs. Yet…[a] mass exodus is taking place, on a Biblical scale. In some places, there is a real danger that Christianity will become extinct.

If these warnings are not heeded, and these states continue to violate the basic human rights obligations incumbent upon them, Christian life may cease to exist in the very place of its birth.

RECENT PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS THROUGHOUT THE MUSLIM WORLD

Egypt

•In October 2013, four Coptic Christians, including young girls of 8 years-old and 12 years-old, were killed, and 24 were injured when gunmen fired on a wedding party in front of the Church of the Virgin Mary near Cairo. Among those killed was eight year-old Mariam Ashraf. Ashraf’s three year-old brother and mother were also shot. Her father stated, “Nobody comes out to tell you honestly: ‘We have arrested the culprit and they are being subjected to the law.’ There is nothing like that.” Eyewitnesses of the attack stated that despite numerous calls for help, ambulances and police only arrived two hours following the shooting.

Egyptian Copts carry four coffins down the aisle of the Virgin Mary Coptic church, on October 21, 2013, as thousands attend the funeral of the victims, gunned down as they attended a wedding the previous evening at the same church.

 •In March 2010, an Egyptian court acquitted four Muslims in the killing and beheading of 61 year-old Farouk Attallah. Attallah was killed after the assailants shot him 31 times before beheading him in a busy market place. The court based its verdict on the testimony of false witnesses, exculpating the killers while refusing to accept the testimony of key witnesses of the attack. Peter Sarwat, the victim’s attorney, described the verdict, stating, “It sends a clear message that Coptic blood is extremely cheap…. This acquittal will make permanent the present culture of impunity enjoyed by Muslim aggressors against Copts.” He continued, “It is not safe for Copts now, as any Muslims who wants to get rid of a Copt, would kill him, knowing well that in the end he will be acquitted.” Sarwat further described how police often purposely prepare inadequate police reports in order to facilitate the acquittal of Muslims.
•Christians in the Minya Governorate in Upper Egypt have been the subject of countless kidnappings. An official in the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior stated that there had been 17 kidnappings in August and September. Ezat Ibrahim, director of the Minya branch of the Al-Kalema Human Rights Organization,  reported that in November 2013 alone there were 9 cases of kidnappings. One report found that since the start of the revolution in 2011, there had been close to 100 kidnapping cases. In each of the cases, the Christian families were forced to pay 100,000 to 250,000 Egyptian pounds ($14,500 to $36,300 USD) in ransom.
•In one case of kidnapping, in June 2013, a six year-old Copt, Cyril Yusuf Sa’ad, was abducted and held for ransom. Despite his family paying the ransom, the Muslim kidnapper, Ahmed Abdel Moneim Abdel-Salam, killed the boy and threw his body in the sewer.
•A Human Rights group has reported that in 2013 alone, 207 churches have been attacked and 43 churches completely destroyed.

Christian farmer Ishaq Aziz cradles a picture of his 17 year-old daughter Nirmeen, a school girl, who went missing in February 2013, in the Minya town of Matai, Egypt.

 •15,000 Christians in the village of Dalga have been forced to pay the jizya, an additional tax or tribute imposed on conquered non-Muslims. Those unable to pay are often beaten or killed. In one such case, Emad Damian, 50, and Medhat Damian, 37, were murdered after refusing to pay 10,000 Egyptian Pounds demanded by the leader of a Muslim gang.  The two Copts had reported the incident to the local police; however, nothing was done. Ahmed Fawzi, secretary of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, described the case, stating, “the gang surprised the two Copts by going to their home in the morning and showering them with bullets, leaving both dead.…[T]he police know who the killers are but are doing nothing to arrest them.”

•Arguably the most telling aspect of this persecution is that this past August, for the first time in 1,600 years, prayers were not held in the Virgin Mary and Priest Ibram Monastery, which was destroyed by supporters of deposed President Morsi. That same month, Coptic Bishop Anba stated in the UK that “over the past weeks we have witnessed an increasing trend in anti-Christian rhetoric calling for the ‘attack upon and eradication of Christians and churches’ in Egypt.” The Coptic Pope Tawadros II also accused the Muslim Brotherhood of fomenting the anti-Christian violence.

In 2013 alone, 207 churches have been attacked and 43 churches completely destroyed. An official in the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior stated that there had been 17 kidnappings in August and September.

•As of December 2013, since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in March 2011, 450,000 Syrian Christians have fled their homes and 1,200 murders of Christians have been documented.

•In October 2013 in the town of Saddad, 45 Christians were killed and the town’s 14 churches were destroyed.  Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama, described these events as “the greatest massacre of Christians in Syria.”

•On January 8, 2014, Fadi Matanius Mattah was beheaded by Islamic militants while travelling from Homs to the Christian village of Marmarita. The militants intercepted and fired on the car he was traveling in along with another Christian, Firas Nader. Mattah was beheaded after the militants noticed the cross he was wearing. Nader, who was wounded in the attack, succeeded in escaping after the militants believed he had been killed.

•The Antiochian Orthodox church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in al-Thawra was destroyed by rebel forces in August 2013. One refugee stated:

The ‘Free Syrian Army’ demolished the [Sts. Sergius and Bacchus] church.…[T]hey tore up the sanctuary curtains, Bibles and other holy books, and broke all the crosses, chairs and icons of Jesus and the saints. They stole electrical appliances like fans, chandeliers and lights. They took whatever was in the church, and sold it all. There is nothing there now.

•In January 2014, it was reported that an Armenian Christian was killed by the al-Qaeda linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant after refusing to convert to Islam. The man and his father were reportedly held for 115 days in a prison maintained by the group in Aleppo.

•In June 2013, Mariam, a 15 year-old Christian, was kidnapped, repeatedly gang raped, and then killed.56  Mariam was abducted by a commander in the Jabhat al Nusra, who married, raped her, and then passed her on to another man who did the same. This took place over the course of 15 days, during which Mariam was raped by 15 different men.

As of December 2013, since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in March 2011, 450,000 Syrian Christians have fled their homes and 1,200 murders of Christians have been documented.

Fighters from the al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) marching in Raqqa, Syria. Once a vibrant, mixed city, Raqqa is now a shell of its former life, transformed by al-Qaida militants into the nucleus of the terror group’s version of an Islamic caliphate they hope one day to establish in Syria and Iraq.

 • After rebels attacked the town of Maalula on September 4, 2013, Adnan Narallah, , described the scene. “I saw people wearing Al-Nusra headbands who started shooting at crosses.…[O]ne of the shooters put a pistol to the head of my neighbor and forced him to convert to Islam by obliging him to repeat ‘there is no God but God’….Afterwards they joked, he’s one of ours now.”

•Another Maalula resident, Rasha, described how rebel forces murdered her fiancé. “I rang his mobile phone and one of them answered,” she said. She described how the man who answered told her that her fiancé was asked to convert to Islam but refused. The rebel added, “Jesus didn’t come to save him.”

•In al-Thawrah, three residents were stopped by rebel forces. The two who were Muslim were released; the third, who was a Christian, was bludgeoned to death.

•In September 2013, the al-Qaeda linked group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, broke the crosses of the Church of the Annunciation and the Church of Martyrs in the city of Raqqah before setting fire to the contents of both churches.

•This troubling situation in Syria was recently summed up by Rima Tuzun of the European Syriac Union. While speaking to Nina Shea, Director of the Center for Religious Freedom, Tuzun stated, “[K]idnapping, killings, ransom, rape…2013 is a tragedy for Christians in Syria. All Syrians have endured great suffering and distress. The Christians, however, often had to pay with their lives for their faith.”

Iraq
 

•On Christmas Day 2013, 37 people were murdered in attacks on Christians.

•In March 2013, it was reported that over the course of only one decade, the number of churches in Iraq has dropped from over 300 to only 57 today.

•According to one Iraqi pastor, Christians have ceased observing basic Christian traditions such as putting up a Christmas tree, due to fear of persecution.

In this mobile phone camera image obtained by the Associated Press, the interior of the Our Lady of Salvation church is seen after gunmen took the congregation hostage on Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010.

•In October 2010, 51 worshipers and 7 Iraqi troops were killed after gunmen from an al-Qaeda affiliated group attacked and laid siege to Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad. Among the 51 worshipers killed were five children and eight women. After these events, one church member commented, “We are the minority. We cannot defend ourselves. We cannot stay in this country anymore.”

•Iraqi Christians, too, have not been immune from the imposition of the jizya tax. Mofed, the owner of a photo shop in Baghdad, was threatened by Muslims who came into his shop and presented him with three options: convert to Islam, pay a $70,000 tax, or be killed. Mofed and his family have fled to Jordan.

•In a similar case, Androus, a Christian from the town of Mosul, described a similar threat he received by phone. He described being told “Because you are infidels, you have to pay jizya.…[E]ither you pay jizya, or we will kill you or your son.”

•On May 30, 2011, Arkan Juhad Yacob, a 63 year-old Christian, was shot dead in cold blood.76 Yacob previously escaped from two unsuccessful ransom abductions.

•On June 25, 2013, gunmen attacked St. Marry’s Assyrian Chruch in Baghdad, wounding two Christian guards.

•Also on June 25, 2013, two Christian owned businesses were bombed, killing one of the Christian shop owners.

•On August 2, 2011, 23 people were wounded when a car bomb exploded outside of the Holy Family Church in Kirkuk.

Over the course of only one decade, the number of churches in Iraq has dropped from over 300 to only 57 today.

Pakistan

•78 people were killed and over 100 were injured in the bombing of the All Saints Church in Peshewar in September 2013.

Pakistani Rukhsana Saleem, 38, who survived the bombing of the All Saints Church, prays at the church where the attack took place, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 23, 2013.

•Following the attack, four blasphemy cases were filed against Christians in less than one month. In all four cases, no direct evidence against the accused was available. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws disproportionately protect Islam over other religions and have historically been used to persecute Christians and other non-Muslims. The laws prescribe a punishment of life imprisonment or death in certain instances.

•In October 2013, an illiterate vendor was beaten by a group of Muslims after it was discovered that fireworks he was selling were wrapped in pages that had verses of the Quran written on them. A blasphemy case has been filed against him. Khurram Shazhad, who filed the case, stated, “The police have also told us that they have put his name on the exit control list at all airports, and he will not be able to leave Pakistan….[H]is punishment will be an example to all those who dare insult Islam and our holy book.”

•In March 2013, a mob set fire to over 100 homes in a Christian neighborhood in Lahore, displacing over 150 families. The attack took place after Sawan Masih was accused of blasphemy following an altercation with a Muslim barber who refused to serve him. One resident stated, “They threw acid and stoned our houses, then set them on fire. The authorities intervened only when everything was destroyed.” The local imam said Sawan will be killed when found. Other Christian residents described how prior to the attack, police instructed them “to vacate the area for their ‘security’ and not to worry about their properties.” Three months after the attack, hundreds of those detained during the violence have been released. Naeem Shakir, a Christian lawyer stated, “Most of the people who were stopped after the attack were declared innocent by the police and immediately released, for corruption or political pressure.”

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws disproportionately protect Islam over other religions and have historically been used to persecute Christians and other non-Muslims

•In a similar case, a violent mob attacked the Christian village of Francis Abad in the city of Gujranwala.  The attack ensued following a violent altercation between the Christian and Muslim communities that resulted from a conflict between Christian youth and Muslim clerics who accused the Christians of playing loud music outside of a mosque.

Iran

•On October 16, 2013, four Christians were sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking communion wine after being charged with consuming alcohol in violation of Iran’s anti-alcohol law.

•After being arrested in February 2012 in a raid on their house-church, four Christians, Mojtaba Seyyed-Alaedin Hossein, Mohammad-Reza Partoei, Vahid Hakkani, and Homayoun Shokouhi, were sentenced to 44 months in prison for “attending a house church, spreading Christianity, having contact with foreign ministries, propaganda against the regime, and disrupting national security.” Homayoun Shokouhi’s wife, Fariba Nazemina, and son, Nima Shokouh, also received two-year suspended prison sentences.
 

HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS

It should be noted that Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan are all parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 18 of the Covenant provides that, “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion." This also encompasses the right to manifest one’s “religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching” in public or in private. The respect of freedom of religion is of such utmost importance, according to the Covenant, that it may not be derogated from under any circumstances, even in times of emergency as is allowed for other protected rights.

Moreover, parties to the Covenant must ensure that anyone whose rights or freedoms are violated shall have an effective remedy. Additionally, Article 26 provides that the law must “guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as…religion." Furthermore, in regard to Pakistan and its blasphemy laws, Article 6 prescribes that in states that have not yet abolished the death penalty, “sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes."

Lastly, in addition to individual rights and freedoms, as a minority Christians are entitled to protections on the communal level as well. Article 27 says, “In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language."

Consequently, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan are all obligated to prevent such acts as described above.  With regard to Syria, it should be noted that although most of the acts above were committed by rebel forces, Syria may still be held liable for these actions in a number of circumstances.

In addition to the obligations of these states to themselves prevent and protect their citizens from persecution, the United States is also empowered and committed to help combat such persecution abroad. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 commits the United States “[t]o condemn violations of religious freedom, and to promote, and to assist other governments in the promotion of, the fundamental right to freedom of religion." To that end, the statute provides that the President may impose various sanctions on States in response to violations of religious freedoms.

Two levels of violations may trigger the use of sanctions. The first, “particularly severe violations of religious freedom,” includes “torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment [or] prolonged detention without charges…or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons."  The second, “violations of religious freedom,” refers to “violations of the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion and religious belief and practice” as recognized in such instruments as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It includes actions such as “arbitrary prohibitions on, restrictions of, or punishment for assembling for peaceful religious activities such as worship, preaching and prayer; speaking freely about one’s religious beliefs; and changing one’s religious beliefs and affiliation."

The sanctions include, inter alia, public condemnation; “directing the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or the Trade and Development Agency not to approve the issuance of any…guarantees, insurance, extensions of credit, or participations in the extension of credit with respect to the specific government, agency, instrumentality, or official” responsible for violations; and the cancellation of working, official, or state visits.

In order to emphasize the seriousness of the acts of persecution described above, it should be noted that the Rome Statute of the ICC provides that when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, persecution against an identifiable group on religious grounds in connection to acts such as murder and imprisonment constitutes a crime against humanity.

PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS: A CASE STUDY

Palestinian Deception and Lip Service to Human Rights

With regard to Christians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas and the Christian community would have you believe that they are immune from this disturbing trend of persecution. At a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in December 2013 in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah stated, “Palestine has preserved the values of peace and tolerance by celebrating Christmas for centuries."

Similarly, Vera Baboun, a Christian and the first female mayor of Bethlehem, commented in a letter in honor of the holiday season that “this is the Bethlehem we also share with the world. A Bethlehem that is a model of natural coexistence between Christians and Muslims, an example for the rest of the region." However, the utopian society described by the mayor does not even hold up to inspection of the mayor’s own experiences. Baboun has been the subject of a smear campaign claiming that she had discriminated against Muslims.  Additionally, threats have been made against her and her family. Following these events, Baboun filed a complaint with the PA that was subsequently withdrawn following the intimidation of Fatah’s armed wing, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas recently stated:

Christians are not a minority here: they are an integral part of the Palestinian people. Orthodox, Catholics, Armenians, Assyrians, Lutherans, Anglicans, Copts, Melkites, Protestants and others are all part of the rich mosaic of this free, sovereign, democratic and pluralistic Palestine we aspire to have and as established in our declaration of independence and draft constitution.

Yasser Arafat also made similar statements. In 1996, he claimed his people “have decided to celebrate with the Christian brothers, all Arabs and all friends in the world the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ in a world religious celebration." It should be remembered that this is the same Arafat who promptly after the PA gained control of Bethlehem converted the Greek Monastery next to the Church of the Nativity into his official residence and drastically altered the municipal boundaries of Bethlehem in order to marginalize the city’s Christian residents.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, center, is welcomed by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, at the Church of Nativity on Christmas Eve, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2013.

Religious leaders echoed similar sentiments. The Bishop Alexius of the Roman Orthodox Church in Gaza praised the Hamas government, stating, “Hamas and its government are keen to maintain the security of the Church and the Gaza Strip [where]…our people experience a general sense of safety, even better than before.…The Palestinian government in Gaza has confirmed that it does not discriminate against Christians in the Gaza Strip on a religious basis." Hamas media adviser, Taher Al-Nunu, similarly noted, “The Christians in Gaza are living in safety just like their Muslims brothers."

When one compares these statements to the reality of the everyday life of Palestinian Christians, the persistence of the long-established pervasive persecution of Palestinian Christians quickly becomes apparent.

The Reality of Christian Life under the PA and Hamas Leadership

When one compares these statements to the reality of the everyday life of Palestinian Christians, the  persistent and pervasive persecution of Palestinian Christians quickly becomes apparent. While rarely attracting media attention, this persecution has been documented since the early day of Palestinian self-administration in the 1990s. Sadly, numerous recent examples of such persecution can be seen.

•In July 2013, it was reported that the St. Lazarus Monastery in Bethany (al-Eizariya) had been the subject of attacks including theft and stone throwing. The attacks stemmed from a dispute with a local Muslim family that asserted ownership of Monastery land. The monastery’s Mother Superior has appealed directly to PA President Abbas, clearly demonstrating that the chance of obtaining legal recompense were next to nothing.

•In December 2013, Christian residents of Bethlehem spoke of the hostile environment they are forced to live in. One Christian told of how her friend was forced to flee Bethlehem after being accused of selling her land to Jews. The Palestinian Land Law prescribes the death penalty for the crime of selling land to Jews. This prohibition is regarded as applying to the selling of land to Christians as well and is applied and enforced in that manner. Ramzi, a Christian, described how he was threatened with death if he sold his land to Christians.  Pastor Isa Bajalia, an evangelical pastor, described a similar case where two men, one a member of the Tanzin militia group, attempted to extort him in exchange for his land. He stated, “It’s like the mafia.…He says if I pay him $30,000 and assign the land over to him, he’ll get off my back." Pastor Bajalia has been forced to flee to the United States.  As will be described below, this incident is in clear violation of the Palestinian Authority’s legal obligations. Article 17 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights protects “everyone’s right to own property." Additionally, as with similar Pakistani laws, this PA law violates Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which limits the use of the death penalty to the most “serious crimes."

•In April 2013, arsonists set fire to the Christian Holy Family School in Gaza. A couple months later in June, in a further case of the imposition of extremist Islamic ideology, five Christian schools in Gaza were faced with closure following a government order forbidding mixed gender institutions. While the order applies to all schools, the five Christian schools are the only coed schools in Gaza.

•In July 2012, a Jericho court sentenced a man to a month of imprisonment for eating in public during Ramadan. Five other people were also arrested for the same conduct. On a related note, Sheikh Yusuf Ida’is, Chairman of the PA Supreme Court for Shari’ah Law, stated “[W]e have to monitor the streets and severely punish anyone who [eats] in public during Ramadan, and this is the responsibility of the security forces.…I call upon others [non-Muslims] to be considerate of Muslims’ feelings." One should take note of the Sheik’s use of the word “considerate.” One would think that as Christians represent a miniscule minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim environment, that Muslims should be the ones being “considerate” to the vulnerable minority among them.

•In June 2012, a young girl reciting a poem on a children’s program broadcasted on official Palestinian Authority TV,  stated, “They [Christians and Jews] are inferior and smaller, more cowardly and despised.”1

•In 2006, Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen set fire to the YMCA headquarters in the Hamas-controlled city of Qalqiliya. One source in the city commented: “The identity of the attackers is well known to Hamas. We don’t expect the Hamas-controlled police, the Hamas city council or the Hamas Interior Ministry to do anything about this attack."

•In February 2008, gunmen attacked the YMCA library in the Gaza Strip. The gunmen first kidnapped two of the library’s guards and then proceeded to detonate a number of explosives. The attack, which destroyed the library, was reportedly in response to the publication of Danish cartoons “ridiculing” the Prophet Mohammed.
Palestinians examine the damage to the library of the YMCA in Gaza City, Friday, Feb. 15, 2008.

•In May 2013, Steve Khoury, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bethlehem, told of the continuous harassment Christians have faced and the subsequent fear that has lead Christians to refrain from wearing crosses in public and carrying Bibles. Khoury further described the general sense of intimidation felt by Christians in Palestinian society, stating, “People are always telling them, ‘Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam. It’s the true and right religion." The First Baptist Church of Bethlehem has been firebombed 14 times.

•In October 2007, Rami Ayad, a Christian and owner of a Gaza book-store, was abducted and murdered, after having been publicly accused of missionary activities.

•In July 2012 according to the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza, five Christians were kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam. One of those Christians, Ramez Al-Amash, was allegedly kidnapped from his home and prevented from contacting family. An Islamic group released a video of Al-Amash declaring that he had converted voluntarily. After Al-Amash’s mother had fallen ill, his family succeeded in contacting the kidnappers and arranging a meeting at the hospital. Al-Amash was accompanied by gunmen to the meeting and was then taken to an unknown location. Al-Amash’s parents lodged a complaint with the Hamas police to no avail. In a press release, the Greek Orthodox Church claimed that the police refused to intervene due to the involvement of an Islamic religious leader and Hamas representative of the Palestinian parliament, Salam Salameh, in the events. Local Christians have accused the organization that Salameh chairs, the Hamas affiliated Palestine Scholars Association, as being responsible for the conversions. Following these events, Josef Elias, a Christian from Gaza City, stated, “We aren’t safe anymore.…This is a conspiracy against our existence in the Holy Land."

•Samir Qumsieh, a Christian community leader from Beit Sahour near Bethlehem, spoke in December 2013 of the discrimination the Christian community faces. He provided a subtle example that is reflective of the extensive persecution of Christians. Qumsieh presented several souvenirs sold around Manger Square in Bethlehem, such as a FC Barcelona soccer ball and a t-shirt showing the Church of Nativity. The crosses that normally appear on both items were removed. This is not a new phenomenon, as Qumsieh spoke of the removal of the cross from souvenirs already in 2010.

In this July 16, 2012, photo, a Palestinian Christian holds a poster of Ramez Al-Amash, 25, during a rally at a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City.

•In a 2007 interview, Qumsieh described how Christians often “have their land stolen by the [Muslim] mafia." He described how Muslim gangs forge documents attesting to their ownership of Christian owned land. When Christian owners resist, they are often beaten. Qumsieh’s own home was firebombed after publicly speaking about the Christian community’s suffering.

•In December 2013, the owner of a religious novelty store described the regular defacement of Christian property. He stated, “We are harassed, but you wouldn’t know the truth. No one says anything publicly about the Muslims. This is why Christians are running away."

It should be noted that while the examples above may not be as alarming as the experiences of Christians in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and Egypt, they are reflective of the greater prevailing atmosphere of persecution experienced by Palestinian Christians at the hands of their own leadership.

Christian Denial and Self-Blame

Perhaps the most saddening aspect of this persecution is the denial of it by Christian leaders and their disconnect from the members of their community. Qumsieh referred to Palestinian leaders as cowards more interested in the Palestinian cause against Israel than their community’s own issues. He stated, “If somebody claims that there is no discrimination, he is a liar.” He added, “[The mayor of Bethlehem] said everything is okay. Of course. In her position she can’t say anything else." On another occasion, Qumsieh stated, “The future of Christianity here is gloomy and anyone claiming otherwise is wrong….Extremism is expanding and we, the Christians, are the weakest link in the chain." A Palestinian journalist, Abd Al-Nasser Al-Najjar, similarly noted “Let us be honest with ourselves and courageously say out loud that Palestinian Christians are taking many severe blows, yet are suffering in silence so as not to attract attention."  He added, “Despite all the injustices [against the Christians], no one has seen or heard of any constructive action to curb it and to [defend] the Christians’ rights – whether by the elites, by any of the three branches (executive, legislative, and judiciary), by non-government organizations, or even by the political factions themselves."

In addition to denying and ignoring the plight of their own people, many Christian leaders go one step further in placing the blame for Christian persecution onto Israel. While speaking during his annual “Christmas message,” the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Foud Twal, used the opportunity to point the finger at Israel for Christian suffering. The Patriarch stated, “The scenarios in Syria and Iraq can be repeated elsewhere, as seen in Egypt and Libya. The instability affects everyone, but especially our faithful who are tempted to emigrate." The Patriarch continued, stating, “the Israeli-Palestinian talks resumed in late July, after three years of interruption. But the efforts are hampered by the continuous building of Israeli settlements. As long as this problem is not resolved, the people of our region will suffer.

Similar sentiments were expressed in literature published in honor of Christmas by the UK-based Amos Trust, which stated:

If Jesus was born today in Bethlehem, the Wise Men would spend several hours queuing to enter the town.…The shepherds, despite being residents of Bethlehem, would struggle to graze their sheep because their land would be annexed by the building of the separation wall [Israeli security fence], and a lack of freedom to travel and restrictions on trade would make it very difficult for them to make a living.

The Palestinian Authority’s Human Rights Obligations

Article 18 of the PA Draft Constitution provides that “The state of Palestine shall abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and shall seek to join other international covenants and charters that safeguard human rights." Article 2 of the Declaration states, “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as…religion." Furthermore, Article 7 states, “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law…and against any incitement to such discrimination." In addition to prohibiting incitement, this Article serves to extend the protection of the Declaration to discrimination of any kind, even that regarding rights and freedoms that are absent from the Declaration. Article 17 states that “everyone has the right to own property."

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."  The PA is also obligated to protect fundamental human rights under the 2003 Palestinian Basic Law, which serves as the PA’s interim constitutional document. Article 10 of the Basic Law provides that “Basic human rights and liberties shall be protected and respected” and that “The Palestinian National Authority shall work without delay to become a party to regional and international declarations and covenants that protect human rights." More explicitly, Article 8 of the previous 1995 Basic Law, states that the PA “recognizes and respects the fundamental human rights and freedoms prescribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [and] the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

Article 18 of the PA Draft Constitution provides that “The state of Palestine shall abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and shall seek to join other international covenants and charters that safeguard human rights.”

While the PA is not a sovereign state and consequently a party to the above treaties, it would be highly indisposed to on the one hand assume the responsibilities of governance while on the other hand look for a way out of complying with the law, which it purportedly adopted. If territorial non-state actors, such as the PA, are to “claim a right to become states by virtue of the right to self-determination, they cannot in good faith reject the applicability of norms that attach to statehood." Moreover, international tribunals have recognized that unilateral declarations “may have the effect of creating legal obligations."  However, as it may be questioned whether non-state actors are capable of binding themselves under international human rights law, at the least, such unilateral undertakings may serve to stop the PA from denying its human rights obligations in certain circumstances.

The PA’s human rights obligations have also been recognized by the UN Human Rights Council, which has stated that the PA has “declared their commitment to respect international human rights law” and is “bound to respect international human rights standards." Moreover, the Human Rights Council has stated in regard to the PA that “it is clear that non-State actors that exercise government-like functions over a territory have a duty to respect human rights." It should be noted that some have argued that such a rule has not yet attained the status of customary international law.

The PA’s human rights obligations have also been recognized by the UN Human Rights Council, which has stated that the PA has “declared their commitment to respect international human rights law” and is “bound to respect international human rights.

Hamas has also bound itself to abide by international human rights standards. In July 2009, Hamas formally stated to the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (Goldstone Report) that “they accepted the obligation to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including those enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Palestinian Basic Law." Similarly, in the text of its 2007 National Unity Government program, Hamas committed to “respect…public liberties; to strengthen the establishment of democracy; to protect human rights…insofar as they conform with our character, customs and original traditions." Lastly, in a speech given in 2006, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya stated that Hamas is determined “to promote…the respect for human rights, the equality among citizens; to fight all forms of discrimination; to protect public liberties, including the freedom of the press and opinion."

Additionally, the UN Human Rights Council has also recognized that “the Gaza authorities have an obligation to respect and enforce the protection of the human rights of the people of Gaza, in as much as they exercise effective control over the territory, including law enforcement and the administration of justice.”196 However, one should take note that the Human Rights Council made this determination on the basis of the language of a previous Human Rights Council Report that appears to have been intended as matter of lex ferenda that does not seem to reflect customary law.

Hamas has also bound itself to abide by international human rights standards. In July 2009, Hamas formally stated to the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (Goldstone Report) that “they accepted the obligation to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including those enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Palestinian Basic Law.”

Muslim states such as Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan are obligated to protect the basic rights and freedoms of their Christians citizens. They have clearly failed to live up to the liberal values they have assumed upon themselves.

To contrast the treatment of the freedom of religion in those States described above, it should be noted that Israel, as a democracy with an independent and competent judiciary, has from its inception protected the fundamental rights and freedoms of all its citizens.Thus, while not explicitly enumerated in the 1992 Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, a document of constitutional status, Israeli courts have recognized the freedom of religion as an inalienable and fundamental right of all citizens.199 The true realization of these values is demonstrated by the fact that a Christian Arab, Justice Salim Joubran, serves on the Israeli Supreme Court.

Muslim states such as Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan are obligated to protect the basic rights and freedoms of their Christians citizens. They have clearly failed to live up to the liberal values they have assumed upon themselves.

The behavior of these states is an affront to the international community. The definition of the crime of genocide includes deliberately inflicting on a religious group “conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." Christians are being systematically persecuted across the Middle East, the result being the termination of communal Christian life in the Middle East. As one Palestinian Christian stated, “We aren’t safe anymore.…[T]his is a conspiracy against our existence in the Holy Land."  While the situation of Christians today does not amount to genocide, it is nonetheless alarming and disturbing. Left unchecked, this persecution is liable to lead to another mass exodus of a minority from the Middle East. It is evident that after Jews were driven from the Muslim states of the Middle East in the 20th century, that Christians are the next minority on the chopping block in the 21st century.

Christians are being systematically persecuted across the Middle East, the result being the termination of communal Christian life in the Middle East.

Our modern concepts of freedom and liberty have deep roots in Jewish scripture and the writings of early Christians. Medieval scholastics and Protestant reformers were essential in developing our modern concept of universal human dignity and freedom.204 The early Christian thinker Tertullian was the first to coin the phrase “religious liberty” and argued that religious liberty is a universal right of all people without any distinction such as race and creed.205 As a visible minority group in the Middle East, Christians bring a measure of diversity and pluralism to overwhelmingly Muslim societies.

The case of Palestinian Christians presents a unique opportunity to deal with such human rights abuses before they become fully entrenched with the backing of a state.

The case of Palestinian Christians presents a unique opportunity to deal with such human rights abuses before they become fully entrenched with the backing of a state. The PA and Hamas (in Gaza) are obligated to protect the fundamental freedoms of their Christian citizens. The PA professes to the world its yearning and right to statehood, but as described, it has not lived up to the liberal values expressed in the foundational documents of the would-be Palestinian state.

However, while the seeds have been planted, there is still time to take action before they fully take root. Therefore, the question we must ask ourselves is, will Palestinian efforts for statehood lead to another state where minorities are brutally persecuted until they slowly cease to exist, or to a liberal state such as Israel where such minorities are accorded the rights and freedoms to which they are entitled?

Pope Francis is set to arrive in the Middle East this May. If this persecution persists, the next time a Pope visits the region, he may have no flock left to tend.

Pope Francis Gives Direction to Charismatic Renewal and New Movements

By Deacon Keith A Fournie 12/20/2014

I believe that the term ecclesial movements is helpful and we should begin to use it. It does not focus on a particular movement - but on the Lord and His Church. Movements come and go, but the Church endures.

On November 22, 2014, Pope Francis addressed a Congress sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Laity. It brought together new movements and communities in the Catholic Church - from across the globe. These movements are not only flourishing, but multiplying in the Catholic Church. They are also playing a vital role in reaching out to Christians of other communities. Pope Francis sees these movements collectively. He also recognizes them as one of the greatest missionary resources of the Catholic Church in her work of reaching out to this age with the liberating message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He views the time in which we live as a new missionary age.
Pope Francis at the last Pentecost Sunday Mass. Included in the massive crowd were members of the diverse ecclesial movements from around the world.

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - On November 22, 2014, Pope Francis addressed a Congress sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Laity. It brought together new movements and communities in the Catholic Church - from across the globe. These movements are not only flourishing, but multiplying in the Catholic Church. They are also playing a vital role in reaching out to Christians of other communities.

Pope Francis sees these movements collectively. He also recognizes them as one of the greatest missionary resources of the Catholic Church in her work of reaching out to this age with the liberating message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He views the time in which we live as a new missionary age.

Francis is a good pastor who wants to ensure that the members of these ecclesial movements do not fall prey to one of the common temptations faced by enthusiastic movements, to turn inward and become, to use one of his favorite words of warning to the whole Church, self-referential.

Over the last few pontificates, the term ecclesial movements has become the preferred term used to refer to the multiple movements which are growing up within the Catholic Church and inspiring a tremendous spiritual renewal. They all demonstrate that Jesus Christ has indeed been raised from the dead - and that He continues His ministry through His Body, the Church, of which we are members.

I believe that the term ecclesial movements is helpful and we should begin to use it. It does not focus on a particular movement - but on the Lord and His Church. Movements come and go, but the Church endures. Even if we participate in a particular movement, our call is to bring people into a relationship with Jesus and help them to find a home in His Body.

Though each movement may have a unique charism and mission, they have some important common elements which are discernible. For example, they all invite Christians into a personal relationship, an encounter, with the Lord Jesus Christ.

They all proclaim that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead and is still alive in our midst in the Church which He founded. They all emphasize the universal call of all baptized Christians to holiness. They all point to living faith as united with action and directed toward mission.

On May 21, 2013, Pope Francis addressed a massive crowd which included the leaders of ecclesial movements. It was Pentecost Sunday. He told them: "The Holy Spirit draws us into the mystery of the living God and saves us from the threat of a Church which is gnostic and self-referential, closed in on herself; he impels us to open the doors and go forth to proclaim and bear witness to the good news of the Gospel, to communicate the joy of faith, the encounter with Christ. The Holy Spirit is the soul of mission."

The last three Popes have used the language of encounter, emphasizing that encountering the Lord personally brings faith alive!  Pope Francis continues to emphasize this need for encountering the Lord. In fact, he is even more insistent about it.

The ecclesial movements are 'evangelical' in the fullest sense of the word. They call men and women into an encounter with Jesus Christ, the Evangel. This encounter awakens the grace of Baptism within them and changes them, opening them to conversion of life. The movements invite the men and women of this age to experience the Pentecost of the Holy Spirit which the Lord promised, right here and now, and not view it as a past event alone.

Then, all who experience such an encounter with the Risen Christ, and are clothed in the Spirit, are invited to find their home in the Heart of His Church. From that base of operation they are enlisted into a mission into the whole world, to take their place in the ongoing redemptive mission of the Lord, as it continues through His Body, the Church.

The last conference for ecclesial movements in Rome exceeded over 120,000 representatives. There were representatives from over 150 ecclesial movements in attendance, reflecting their growing diversity and numbers.

The Successor of Peter seeks to unite them in the one mission of the Church in this moment in history. He is issuing a call for laborers in the vineyard of a new missionary age. He does this because he is the Vicar of Christ. The word Vicar means representative. It is Jesus Himself who is calling us into the fields of this current age which are ready for harvest.

Men and women from every walk of life who have encountered the Risen Lord Jesus and believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, are needed for this new missionary age. Men and women who understand that the very nature of the Church is missionary - and that every member of the Church is called into that mission.

I offer below some excerpts from this pastorally wise, inspiring talk given to the leaders of the new movements and communities. The problem with much of the coverage of this pontificate is that we do not read or hear these kinds of instructions from this Pope.

In these words, we can see the gift that Pope Francis is for the Church in this new missionary age. He certainly recognizes the contributions of the new movements and communities.

However, he warns them all of against the pitfalls which can accompany enthusiastic movements. He encourages them all to move toward Christian and ecclesial maturity. He calls them into the fullness of communion. He invites them to live, as I like to say, in the heart of the Church, for the sake of the world.

He calls them to develop an authentically Catholic Christian vision, one which is rooted in Catholic teaching, but has a heart for the whole Christian people and enters into the priestly prayer of Jesus Christ for unity - so that the world may believe. (John 17:21) The direction that Pope Francis gave to Charismatic Renewal and the new movements is for all of us.

* * *
From Pope Francis

Dear brothers and sisters, Good morning!

At the heart of your deliberations in these days are two elements which are essential for Christian life: conversion and mission. These are intimately connected. In fact, without an authentic conversion of heart and mind, the Gospel cannot be proclaimed; at the same time, if we are not open to mission, conversion is not possible and faith becomes sterile.

The Movements and New Communities that you represent are moving towards a deeper sense of belonging to the Church, a maturity that requires vigilance in the path of daily conversion. This will enable an ever more dynamic and fruitful evangelization. I would like, therefore, to offer you a few suggestions for your journey of faith and ecclesial life.

First, it is necessary to preserve the freshness of your charism, never lose that freshness, the freshness of your charism, always renewing the "first love" (cf. Rev 2:4). As time goes by, there is a greater temptation to become comfortable, to become hardened in set ways of doing things, which, while reassuring, are nonetheless sterile. There is the temptation to cage in the Holy Spirit: this is a temptation!

However, "realities are more important than ideas" (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 231-233); even if a certain institutionalization of the charism is necessary for its survival, we ought not delude ourselves into thinking that external structures can guarantee the working of the Holy Spirit. The newness of your experiences does not consist in methods or forms, or the newness itself, all of which are important, but rather in your willingness to respond with renewed enthusiasm to the Lord's call.

Such evangelical courage has allowed for the growth of your Movements and New Communities. If forms and methods become ends in themselves, they become ideological, removed from reality which is constantly developing; closed to the newness of the Spirit, such rigid forms and methods will eventually stifle the very charism which gave them life.

We need always to return to the sources of our charism, and thus to rediscover the driving force needed to respond to challenges. You have not been schooled in such a spirituality. You have not attended an institution of spirituality in this way. You are not simply a small group. No! You are rather a movement, always on the way, always in movement, always open to God's surprises which are in harmony with the first call of the movement, namely the founding charism.

A further issue concerns the way of welcoming and accompanying men and women of today, in particular, the youth (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 105-106). We are part of a wounded humanity - and we must be honest in saying this - in which all of the educational institutions, especially the most important one, the family, are experiencing grave difficulties almost everywhere in the world.

Men and women today experience serious identity problems and have difficulty making proper choices; as a result, they tend to be conditioned and to delegate important decisions about their own lives to others. We need to resist the temptation of usurping individual freedom, of directing them without allowing for their growth in genuine maturity. Every person has their own time, their own path, and we must accompany this journey.

Moral or spiritual progress which manipulates a person's immaturity is only an apparent success, and one destined to fail. It is better to achieve less and move forward without seeking attention. Christian education, rather, requires a patient accompaniment which is capable of waiting for the right moment for each person, as the Lord does with each one of us. The Lord is patient with us! Patience is the only way to love truly and to lead others into a sincere relationship with the Lord.

One other consideration we must never forget is that the most precious good, the seal of the Holy Spirit, is communion. This is the supreme blessing that Jesus won for us on the Cross, the grace which the Risen Christ continually implores for us as he reveals to the Father his glorious wounds, "As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (Jn 17:21).

For the world to believe that Jesus is Lord, it needs to see communion among Christians. If, on the other hand, the world sees divisions, rivalries, backbiting, the terrorism of gossip, please. if these things are seen, regardless of the cause, how can we evangelize? Remember this further principle: "Unity prevails over conflict" (Evangelii Gaudium, 226-230), because our brothers and sisters are always of greater value than our personal attitudes; indeed, it is for our brothers and sisters that Christ has shed his blood (1 Pet 1:18-19); it has not been shed for my ideas!

In addition, real communion cannot exist in Movements or in New Communities unless these are integrated within the greater communion of our Holy Mother, the hierarchical Church. "The whole is greater than the part" (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 234-237), and the part only has meaning in relation to the whole.

Communion also consists in confronting together and in a united fashion the most pressing questions of our day, such as life, the family, peace, the fight against poverty in all its forms, religious freedom and education. In particular, New Movements and Communities are called to coordinate their efforts in caring for those wounded by a globalized mentality which places consumption at the center, neglecting God and those values which are essential for life.

In order to attain ecclesial maturity, therefore, maintain - I say again - the freshness of your charism, respect the freedom of each person, and always strive for communion. Do not forget, however, that to reach this goal, conversion must be missionary: the strength to overcome temptations and insufficiencies comes from the profound joy of proclaiming the Gospel, which is the foundation of your charisms.

In fact, "when the Church summons Christians to take up the task of evangelization, she is simply pointing to the source of authentic personal fulfillment" (Evangelii Gaudium, 10), the true motivation for renewal of one's own life, since all mission is a sharing in the mission of Christ who always precedes and accompanies us in the work of evangelization.

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Deacon Keith A. Fournier is Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance. A married Roman Catholic Deacon of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, he and his wife Laurine have five grown children and six grandchildren, He serves as the Director of Adult Faith Formation at St. Stephen, Martyr Parish in Chesapeake, VA. He is also a human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the first and founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice in the nineteen nineties. He has long been active at the intersection of faith and culture and currently serves as Special Counsel to Liberty Counsel. He is also the Editor in Chief of Catholic Online

Christians celebrate Christmas with heavy heart in India

They are concerned over increasing attacks on the community across the country.
Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi addressing a gathering of devotees.
Dec 23th, 2014

(Agenzia Fides) Bishops and Christian leaders India say they celebrate Christmas this year with "a heavy heart" because of the violence against Christians in various parts of the country.

The leaders of various denominations said in a statement in Delhi that attacks against their people have increased across the country, especially in the states of "Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and now in the territory of the capital city Delhi.” Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi signed the statement along with and other Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant Bishops and civil society leaders.

The burning of Saint Sebastian's church in Delhi, as well as other incidents of targeted violence, show contempt not only towards the religious feelings of our community, but also for the protection guaranteed in the Constitution of India," the Christian leaders said. They explained that these acts of violence are not isolated incidents, but part of a series of interconnected actions by various non-state actors. "Many politicians have called for national laws against conversion, measures that affect the Christian and Muslim communities, although not mentioned." "The well organized campaign, also by senior members of Parliament belonging to the ruling party, is a threat to peace and national harmony and calls into question the identity and patriotism of different religious minorities in India", discrediting and exposing them to further violence.

The statement said, "While the government won the election by presenting a platform of 'development and good governance', radical groups see their program of hatred and religious nationalism approved. It is a blatant attempt to sabotage the Indian Constitution, which guarantees freedom of every Indian citizen to profess, practice and propagate their religion."

The leaders noted that the measures, paradoxically called "Laws for religious freedom", in force in several Indian states, have been in fact limited and "have been used against minorities, giving police the power to disrupt, arrest and punish priests, religious and church operators". The Bishops have sent a memorandum to the government that lists various "representative episodes of hostility and discrimination suffered by Christians throughout India". They report cases of "social boycott" (some Christian missionaries are denied entry in over 50 villages in the region of Bastar in Chhattisgarh, and some Christian families in Orissa are not allowed to use the public well in the village); physical aggression in many states; desecration of religious buildings.

The statement concluded reminding that India's founders were committed to ensure that the rights of all are protected regardless of religion, gender or caste and hoping that a strong political will of civil and political institutions would stop this discrimination and targeted violence.
 

10,000 People Protest Against Islam in the German City of Dresden

Participants hold a banner during a demonstration called by anti-immigration group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (Pegida) in Dresden, Germany, on Dec. 15, 2014

Hannibal Hanschke—Reuters
Protesters demand immigration-policy overhaul, ruling politicians label them "Nazis in pinstripes"

A march against the “Islamization of the West” in the German city of Dresden attracted about 10,000 people on Monday. Participants gathered under banners reading “Protect our homeland” and “No Shari‘a law in Europe,” but also the famous slogan “We are the people,” used during the demonstrations that led up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, reports the BBC.

“There’s freedom of assembly in Germany, but there’s no place for incitement and lies about people who come to us from other countries,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. “Everyone [who attends] needs to be careful that they are not taken advantage of by the people who organize such events.”

It is the ninth week in a row that a movement called Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (Pegida) is organizing protests in the German state of Saxony, but Monday’s march is the biggest by far. Frauke Petry, Dresden leader of the Pegida-sympathetic party Alternativ für Deutschland, said the march was “protesting against inadequate legislation on asylum rights.”

Germany accepts more asylum seekers than any other country, and immigration rates have surged because of the wars in Syria and Iraq. However, a mere 2% of Saxony’s population is foreign, and only a fraction of them Muslim, the New York Times points out. Considering the country’s troubled past with extreme right-wing politics, the protests have shocked many Germans. Justice Minister Heiko Maas has called them “a disgrace” and the Social Democrats, part of the ruling coalition, have branded them “Nazis in pinstripes.”
 

Bombay. Golden jubilee of first papal visit concluded

Archbishop Salvatore Penncchio, the papal nuncio to India, was the main celebrant.

Posted on December 9, 2014 - Photo courtesy: bellevision

Mumbai:

Bombay Archdiocese on Sunday concluded the golden jubilee celebrations of Pope Paul VI visiting the city for the 1964 Eucharist Congress as the first pope in history to visit India. The moth-long program to commemorate the pope opening the 38th International Eucharistic Congress in the city ended with a Mass in at the Don Bosco School grounds in Wadala.

Archbishop Salvatore Penncchio, the papal nuncio to India, was the main celebrant. The three-hour ceremony included a special mass followed by a cultural program of music and dance, said Father Nigel Barrett, spokes person of the archdiocese. Archbishop of Bombay Oswald Cardinal Gracias stressed on the contribution of Catholic institutions to nation-building, especially in education and healthcare, Fr Barrett, said.

The month-long activities, which included exhibitions, rallies and administration of Sacraments, were planned to remember the event and help the spiritual growth of the people. The archdiocese began on Nov. 6 what is called "the circle of life" in which the Blessed Sacrament visited parishes of the archdiocese where the faithful spent hours in adoration. It also opened an exhibition of the Congress at the St. Joseph’s Convent in Bandra in November, which will close only on Dec. 14.

On Dec. 3, the feast of St. Francis Xavier, a special blood donation drive has been organized at various hospitals. During the week, prayers were held for priests and religious. A Stations of the Cross was held on Friday with the script from the original that was used by Blessed Paul the VI during the Eucharist Congress 50 years ago. Parishes also were asked to reach out the poor through acts of mercy as the Cardinal and his auxiliaries planned visits to hospitals, the prison and the hospice.
 

India - Huge crowds flock to see St Francis Xavier's relics on his feast day

Procession of the relics of St. Francis Xavier in Old Goa outside Se Cathedral on his feast day, Dec. 3, 2014. Credit: Archdiocese of Goa and Daman.

By Antonio Anup Gonsalves

Panjim, India, Dec 5, 2014 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday, the 462nd anniversary of his death, an estimated 200,000 people visited Se Cathedral in Old Goa to venerate the relics of St. Francis Xavier, the “Apostle to the Far East.” The saint's relics are in the midst of an exposition, lasting from Nov. 22 until Jan. 4, 2015, which only happens once every ten years. The last exposition, in 2004, drew more than 2.5 million to Goa. “There is a great spiritual awakening through catechesis, which is animating faith formation in the family and also fostering the building of small Christian communities,” explained Fr. Mario Saturnino Dias, director of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman's missionary center. “We are indebted to ‘Goencho Saib’ in receiving faith, vocations, and the Catholic Church,” Fr. Dias told CNA Dec. 3.

The residents of Goa, irrespective of religion, hold St. Francis Xavier in high esteem, calling him “Goencho Saib,” Konkani for “Sir” or “Lord.” St. Francis Xavier was among the first companions of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and was one of the first members of the Society of Jesus. He evangelized in India, Indonesia, and Japan, and died in 1552 on his way to China. His remains are normally kept at the Basilica of Bom Jesus in an elevated silver casket, but they were transferred to Se Cathedral on Nov. 22 for public veneration. Some 95-100,000 pilgrims were coming to Goa each day, but last weekend the number surged to over 200,000 daily, in anticipation of his feast. Some pilgrims have walked hundreds of miles on foot to visit the relics.

“People have identified St. Francis as a holy man of God who can intercede for them; they have witnessed several grace and miracles,” Fr. Dias said. “The faith of the people is also seen in the popular devotions that are strengthened in the Eucharist. Thousands of faithful also queue for confessions.” Fr. Dias emphasized the role of catechesis in promoting and refining popular piety, which the Goa-Daman archdiocese has taken up formation modules sent to the parishes. During Mass on Dec. 3, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay called Francis Xavier “a holy man, a messenger of God.” Cardinal Gracias' family has roots in Goa, and he noted that it is through St. Francis' teaching of the catechism, administering the sacraments, and forming Christian communities that his forefathers received the faith. “Through him my ancestors received faith, and so today I am thanking God for this gift of faith.”

The prelate, explaining “the jewel of faith” received from St. Francis, asked the faithful “Are we keeping it shining? Is the Gospel the center of our life?” Cardinal Gracias urged the families to maintain and continue the Goan traditions of family prayer and Bible reading. The Mass was concelebrated by Bishop Carlos de Pinho Moreira Azevedo, an official of the Pontifical Council for Culture; Bishop Jose Caires de Nobrega of Manajary, in Madagascar; Archbishop Blasco Collaco, apostolic nuncio emeritus to South Africa; and Bishop Anthony Fernandes Barreto of Sindhudurg, a suffragan diocese to Goa and Daman. Archbishop Filipe Neri Antonio do Rosario Ferrao of Goa and Daman expressed his gratitude to the pilgrims and looked forward to the Jan. 4 canonization of Bl. Joseph Vaz by Pope Francis during his trip to Sri Lanka.

Bl. Joseph Vaz was a native of Goa who evangelized Sri Lanka in the 16th century and is known as the island's “apostle.”
 

Pope Francis: Muslim leaders should condemn terrorism
 

Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew I signed a pledge to support Christians in the Middle East

BBC 01-12-2014. Pope Francis has urged Muslim leaders around the world to condemn terrorism carried out in the name of Islam. Speaking on board a flight back to Rome, the Pope said that he understood the harm caused by the stereotype that linked Islam with terrorism. He said a "global condemnation" of the violence would help the majority of Muslims dispel this stereotype.

Pope Francis was returning from a three-day visit to Turkey, where he discussed divisions between faiths. The pontiff denounced people who say that "all Muslims are terrorists". "As we cannot say that all Christians are fundamentalists," he said. In Istanbul, Pope Francis called for an end to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. In a joint declaration, the Pope and Patriarch Bartholomew I said they could not resign themselves to a "Middle East without Christians".

Patriarch Bartholomew is the spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians, whose Church broke with Rome in 1054 in a schism that divided the Christian world. Constantinople, as the modern Turkish city of Istanbul was once known, was the centre of Orthodox Christianity until the Ottoman conquest in 1453. Only around 120,000 Christians remain in Turkey, where the vast majority of the 80 million citizens are Muslims. Pope Francis also called for dialogue with Muslims to counter fanaticism and fundamentalism when he visited the Turkish capital, Ankara.

'Indifference of many'

Pope Francis flanked by Vatican spokesman father Federico Lombardi talks to journalists during a press conference aboard the flight towards Rome  Pope Francis was returning to Rome after his three-day visit to Turkey when he made his latest comments Christians have been targeted by Muslim hardliners in Iraq and Syria in recent years, with a violent campaign of persecution by Islamic State militants this summer when they captured the Iraqi city of Mosul.

In their joint declaration, the two Church leaders said: "We express our common concern for the current situation in Iraq, Syria and the whole Middle East. "Many of our brothers and sisters are being persecuted and have been forced violently from their homes. It even seems that the value of human life has been lost, that the human person no longer matters and may be sacrificed to other interests. And, tragically, all this is met by the indifference of many."

The pontiff and the patriarch also called for peace in Ukraine. The violent conflict in Ukraine this year has accentuated differences between its large Orthodox and Catholic communities. The Pope and the patriarch said: "We pray for peace in Ukraine, a country of ancient Christian tradition, while we call upon all parties involved to pursue the path of dialogue and of respect for international law in order to bring an end to the conflict and allow all Ukrainians to live in harmony." As his visit drew to a close, Pope Francis met Turkey's chief rabbi, whose flock has diminished to just 17,000 people.

At the Blue Mosque on Saturday, one of the greatest masterpieces of Ottoman architecture, the Pope turned east towards Mecca, clasped his hands and paused for two minutes as the Grand Mufti of Istanbul, Rahmi Yaran, delivered a Muslim prayer. The Pope then visited Hagia Sofia - which for almost 1,000 years was the most important Orthodox cathedral, then for nearly five centuries a mosque under the Ottomans, and is currently a museum.

For Istanbul, a city that passed from the Byzantines to the Ottomans, a place where religions, empires and cultures collided, the Pope's message of interfaith dialogue has profound resonance, says the BBC's Mark Lowen in Istanbul.
 

INDIA - Christian missionaries labeled "enemies of Hindus"

New Delhi (Agenzia Fides) - Christian missionaries are identified among the five biggest enemies of Hindus: is what is said in a pamphlet distributed at World Hindu Congress 2014 which has just ended in Delhi. As Fides learns, other "sworn enemies of Hindus" highlighted in the text are: Islam, Marxism, materialism, "Macaulayismo" (the public education system launched by Tohmas Macaualy during the days of British dominion, ed).

These concepts, expression of Hindutva ideology (which preaches "India for only Hindus") found space during the Congress, given the massive presence of militants and radical organizations.

"The combination of forces and anti-Hindus is weakening Indian society", is what is said and therefore the faithful are invited to counter the cultural system in force. The pamphlet defines Islam "poisonous", criticizes the cultural and religious pluralism and the approach of Christian missionaries who "wickedly introduce the value system of their own western societies"

World Hindu Congress in 2014 was attended by over 1,500 delegates from 40 countries. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 26/11/2014)

In Turkey, Pope Francis Voices Concern Over "Grave Persecution" of Minorities in Iraq and Syria

Erdogan hears plea for Christians as Pontiff begins three-day visit.

Vatican Radio — Pope Francis has urged more interreligious dialogue to help bring peace and end all forms of "fundamentalism, terrorism and irrational fears."

His appeal came in a speech to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other top political leaders on the first day of his pastoral visit to the cities of Ankara and Istanbul. His visit comes in response to invitations from the Turkish government and from the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians.
In his discourse today, the Pope stressed the importance of religious freedom and respect for human dignity and said we must never "resign ourselves" to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.  He spoke of his concern over the conflicts in Iraq and Syria along with the "grave persecution" of minorities there and praised Turkey’s "generous" response in welcoming a large number of refugees from these regional conflicts.

Here is an English translation of Pope Francis’ address to President Erdo?an and other Turkish political leaders:

 Mr President, Distinguished Authorities,Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased to visit your country so rich in natural beauty and history, and filled with vestiges of ancient civilizations.  It is a natural bridge between two continents and diverse cultures.  This land is precious to every Christian for being the birthplace of Saint Paul, who founded various Christian communities here, and for hosting the first seven Councils of the Church.  It is also renowned for the site near Ephesus which a venerable tradition holds to be the “Home of Mary,” the place where the Mother of Jesus lived for some years.  It is now a place of devotion for innumerable pilgrims from all over the world, not only for Christians, but also for Muslims.
Yet, the reasons why Turkey is held with such regard and appreciation are not only linked to its past and ancient monuments, but also have to do with the vitality of its present, the hard work and generosity of its people, and its role in the concert of nations.  It brings me great joy to have this opportunity to pursue with you a dialogue of friendship, esteem and respect, in the footsteps of my predecessors Blessed Paul VI, Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI.  This dialogue was prepared for and supported by the work of the then Apostolic Delegate, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, who went on to become Saint John XXIII, and by the Second Vatican Council.

Today what is needed is a dialogue which can deepen the understanding and appreciation of the many things which we hold in common.  Such a dialogue will allow us to reflect sensibly and serenely on our differences, and to learn from them. There is a need to move forward patiently in the task of building a lasting peace, one founded on respect for the fundamental rights and duties rooted in the dignity of each person.  In this way, we can overcome prejudices and unwarranted fears, leaving room for respect, encounter, and the release of more positive energies for the good of all. To this end, it is essential that all citizens – Muslim, Jewish and Christian – both in the provision and practice of the law, enjoy the same rights and respect the same duties.  They will then find it easier to see each other as brothers and sisters who are travelling the same path, seeking always to reject misunderstandings while promoting cooperation and concord.  Freedom of religion and freedom of expression, when truly guaranteed to each person, will help friendship to flourish and thus become an eloquent sign of peace.

The Middle East, Europe and the world all await this maturing of friendship.  The Middle East, in particular, has for too long been a theater of fratricidal wars, one born of the other, as if the only possible response to war and violence must be new wars and further acts of violence.  How much longer must the Middle East suffer the consequences of this lack of peace?  We must not resign ourselves to ongoing conflicts as if the situation can never change for the better!  With the help of God, we can and we must renew the courage of peace!  Such courage will lead to a just, patient and determined use of all available means of negotiation, and in this way achieve the concrete goals of peace and sustainable development.

Mr. President, interreligious and intercultural dialogue can make an important contribution to attaining this lofty and urgent goal, so that there will be an end to all forms of fundamentalism and terrorism which gravely demean the dignity of every man and woman and exploit religion.  Fanaticism and fundamentalism, as well as irrational fears which foster misunderstanding and discrimination, need to be countered by the solidarity of all believers.  This solidarity must rest on the following pillars: respect for human life and for religious freedom, that is the freedom to worship and to live according to the moral teachings of one’s religion; commitment to ensuring what each person requires for a dignified life; and care for the natural environment.  The peoples and the states of the Middle East stand in urgent need of such solidarity, so that they can “reverse the trend” and successfully advance a peace process, repudiating war and violence and pursuing dialogue, the rule of law, and justice.

Sadly, to date, we are still witnessing grave conflicts.  In Syria and Iraq, particularly, terrorist violence shows no signs of abating.  Prisoners and entire ethnic populations are experiencing the violation of the most basic humanitarian laws.  Grave persecutions have taken place in the past and still continue today to the detriment of minorities, especially – though not only – Christians and Yazidis.  Hundreds of thousands of persons have been forced to abandon their homes and countries in order to survive and remain faithful to their religious beliefs.  Turkey, which has generously welcomed a great number of refugees, is directly affected by this tragic situation on its borders; the international community has the moral obligation to assist Turkey in taking care of these refugees.  In addition to providing much needed assistance and humanitarian aid, we cannot remain indifferent to the causes of these tragedies.  In reaffirming that it is licit, while always respecting international law, to stop an unjust aggressor, I wish to reiterate, moreover, that the problem cannot be resolved solely through a military response. What is required is a concerted commitment on the part of all, based on mutual trust, which can pave the way to lasting peace, and enable resources to be directed, not to weaponry, but to the other noble battles worthy of man: the fight against hunger and sickness, the fight for sustainable development and the protection of creation, and the relief of the many forms of poverty and marginalization of which there is no shortage in the world today. Turkey, by virtue of its history, geographical position and regional influence, has a great responsibility: the choices which Turkey makes and its example are especially significant and can be of considerable help in promoting an encounter of civilizations and in identifying viable paths of peace and authentic progress.

May the Most High bless and protect Turkey, and help the nation to be a strong and fervent peacemaker!  Thank you!
 

Muslims Expel All Christians From a Village in Pakistan

Christians forced to leave because a Christian married a Muslim woman.

Pakistan/Aleteia (Aleteia.org/ar) – In a Pakistani village in the Punjab province, Christian families are being forced to leave because a Christian married a Muslim woman. The Muslims in this village became enraged when this occurred and began threatening them.

This event is happening as little was two weeks after the atrocious crime wherein a Christian couple was burned in a brick kiln by a Muslim mob. The couple had been working there when they were accused of blasphemy; a crime they did not commit. The Punjab has once again become the scene for a new tragedy.

All of the Christian families in one of the villages of the Sahiwal region were forced to flee from their homes due to these threats from Muslims. They condemned one of the Christians for getting married to someone from their group. ‘Abid Masih, a friend of the couple, revealed to Press Trust of India news agency on the 13th of November that, “They were married in October and once the Muslims in the village learned of the marriage they demanded that the young woman be returned or we would bear the consequences.”

Prohibited by Islamic Law
The names of the newly married couple are Shahab Masih and Ruksana Kosar, who is in her twenties. They no longer live in the village where the young woman was raised. They now live in the Khanewal region, which is where the young Christian man lived. The future couple met in the village of Sahiwal, where Shahab frequently traveled to visit his family.
When the news of the marriage was learned, the Muslims in Sahiwal attacked Shahab’s family as well as other Christian families in the village. The Muslims demanded that Ruksana be returned immediately, according to Sharia which prohibits Muslim women from marrying a man from another religion.

In this regard ‘Abid clarified saying, “We told them that Shahab is now living in Khanewal with his wife and that it would be better for them to go and discuss the matter with him there. However, they would not listen. Then, the Muslim woman’s father Jamil Hussein proceeded to file a complaint with the Shahkot police, accusing Shahab and two of his family members with kidnapping. Meanwhile, the entire Muslim community was threatening to kill Shahab’s father and all of the village’s Christians.

The Police provided no assistance
The Christians’ pleas for help from the local police were all in vain. In light of this fact, the nine Christian families living in Sahiwal (approximately 25 people) were forced to flee during the night leaving their homes and jobs.  The Investigator, Muhammad Riyad from the Shahkot police defended himself by saying, “We have not arrested anyone yet due to the sensitive nature of this case. We will not take any further steps before undergoing a thorough investigation.”

Without shelter and resources
This is the third time during the past few weeks that Christian families in the Punjab have been forced to leave their village because of Muslims. Two other cases occurred in the areas of Sargodha and Narowal. Meanwhile, Aslam Sahoutra, leader and president of the Humanitarian Liberation Front of Pakistan, condemned these recent incidents. Furthermore, he demanded that the Punjab provincial president, Shahbaz Sharif ensure that families can return to their villages with police protection. They have been left destitute since being forced from their homes and villages.

Likewise, other human rights activists protested and condemned this recent incident. They renewed their complaint that “members of the Muslim community are immune from all prosecution, yet there is a complete absence of protection for Christians.”

Shocking murder of a married couple who were burned alive
This has all happened at a time when the country is still living in a state of shock because of the murder of the Christian couple Shahjad Masih and Shama Bibi who were burned alive on the 4th of November by an angry mob of hundreds of Muslims who accused them of desecrating the Quran.

In light of the extreme barbarism by which this tragedy is characterized, the media in the country are throwing their support exclusively behind the Islamic community; which happens to be the largest religious group in Pakistan. Yet, the community’s leader, Siraj al-Haqq did meet with the families of the two victims on November 10th in order to offer his condolences. The government was urged to “take decisive measures against the perpetrators of this terrible crime.” Since these crimes occurred on the 4th of November protests have erupted in several of the country’s largest cities, demanding that “authorities learn from this tragedy in order to prevent it from happening again.”

In Faisalabad more than a thousand human rights activists, a variety of religious leaders, Christians, Muslims, monks and students gathered for a candlelight vigil commemorating the slain couple. This all took place in front of local government buildings on Thursday, November 13th. This march, which was organized by the National Minorities Alliance of Pakistan (NMAP), the Joshua Welfare Organization (JWO) and the Muslims and Christians Union, was concluded with an interfaith prayer in honor of Shama and Shahzad.

Eradication of minorities
At the end of the demonstration Lala Robin Daniel, an NMAP leader stated that, “the Christians that were murdered in the name of religion under the pretext of anti-blasphemy laws amounts to the eradication of minorities.” A government official over minority rights demanded that “immediate measures” be taken regarding the violations being committed in the name of the anti-blasphemy laws, and that harsher punishments be given to those who would use those laws for revenge or to settle personal scores. Father Suhail Kanwal supported this announcement by saying, “the arbitrary use of anti-blasphemy laws is an act of blasphemy in and of itself and deserves the same punishment.” Furthermore, he recommended that authorities create a committee entrusted with investigating blasphemy cases that “are still pending before the courts,” such as the much publicized case involving Asia Bibi. Finally, the Muslim leader Yunus Abar mentioned the importance of immediate reforms for worker’s rights; especially in the labs and brick factories where minority workers are often the victims of violations and harassment.

In Lahore, thousands of demonstrators (students, activists from the Human Friends Organization and the International Stefanos Union) rallied on Saturday the 15th of November in front of the Press Club. During the demonstration they chanted, “Justice must be served,” and “Stop the massacre of minorities.” Furthermore, they demanded that the “death penalty be given to those who murdered Shahzad and Shama.” During this demonstration, which was followed by a candlelight vigil to commemorate the Christian couple who had been murdered, a picture of the brick factory’s owner, Yusuf Ghawjar was burned as an act of condemnation for the “guilty who have been allowed to avoid punishment.”

During the day on the 17th of November, hearings were started in order to arraign those who had been accused of being the ringleaders in the mass murder of Christians. Among those who had been arrested there were fifty who had been detained since the tragedy occurred. A counter-terrorism court was convened to hear the cases of four who were the owners of the brick factory and afterwards the judge remanded them to prison where they will be held until the next scheduled hearing on the 19th of November.”
 

Archibishop of Manila: An exorcist Warns Against Yoga - ‘You’re Opening Yourself To Possession’

Philippine Daily Inquirer. Saturday, November 1st, 2014

Tina G. Santos

Church warns yoga, feng shui practitioners

Practicing yoga and believing in feng shui, horoscopes and lucky charms can make one vulnerable to demonic possession, warned an exorcist of the Archdiocese of Manila.

“When you practice yoga, you are told to ‘empty your mind’ while saying [the mantra] ‘om,’ so you can feel relaxed. But when you empty yourself, you’re opening yourself to possession. You have to be careful because demons might take advantage of (this) empty [vessel of your soul] and possess it,” Msgr. Jay Bandojo said during a recent talk at the Arzobispado de Manila in Intramuros.
The belief in occult practices, feng shui, lucky charms, amulets, fortune-telling, astrology, horoscope, transcendental meditation and similar practices also allow demons to have a claim over a person, said Bandojo, who has special permission to perform exorcisms.

‘Spirit of the Glass’

Playing ‘Spirit of the Glass’ (the local version of the Ouija board), even as an observer, can be risky, he added. “The mere fact that you took a peek [means] you’re already contaminated. It means there could be a [demon] attached to you because of your curiosity.”
Instead of asking people to empty their minds, Catholic teaching tells the faithful to “center on Christ, on the angels, on saints and on Mama Mary,” when they “pray, meditate or contemplate,” said Bandojo.Bad spirits also attach to people who engage or have interest, in hidden knowledge “usually (found) in masonry, illuminati (groups), scientology (and) fraternities … spirits attach to you when you engage in those,” the monsignor said.
People may also be vulnerable to demonic possession through “the sin of omission and sin of commission,” he added.
“You sin because you are doing what is not good, and you sin because you did not do what is good,” he explained. “Every sin has a demon involved.
Do not think that it’s just a small sin or (that) nobody knows about it because you already allowed a spirit to enter you, to be attached to you,” Bandojo said.

Don’t curse

Cursing and being cursed also open one to demonic possession, this exorcist said. “So even at the height of your anger, don’t curse other people. Parents, don’t curse your children because the demons will take advantage, they will ride on your curse. And you (would have) put problems in your children’s future,” Bandojo said.
He added that being in a state of shock or trauma also makes one vulnerable to possession.“Because it’s like your mind is empty and demons will take advantage (of it). That’s why some trauma patients attempt suicide. They hear voices (telling them) ‘kill yourself,’ ‘kill your friend,’ ‘jump off a building,’” Bandojo said, adding that demonic possession can result in the destruction of one’s personality, relationships, health and wealth.
But being possessed by evil can also be avoided, he said.
“All you need to do is live the sacraments… live a good Catholic life, away from (bad) influences,” Bandojo said, adding that apart from basic sacramentals like holy water and exorcised oil and salt usually used by exorcists to ward off demonic possessions, religious items such as rosaries, scapulars, crucifixes and prayer books can also protect us from evil.
“But don’t use them like amulets,” Bandojo cautioned. “If you are influenced, if you are open [to influences], these things become ineffective. They only become effective if you are in (a state of) sanctifying grace.”
 

Chavara, a New Indian Saint Who Was a "Spiritual and Social Revolutionary"

A devout Christian in a non-Christian land who worked on behalf of all

Mannanam, India – Canonization may be a practice exclusive to Catholics and Orthodox. But when Pope Francis raised two Indians to the altars Sunday, the celebrations were not confined to Christians.

Indeed, in spite of growing tensions between Hindu nationalists and Christians in India, many Hindus joined in celebrations in predominantly Christian areas of the subcontinent while Pope Francis conducted the canonization rites in Rome on the feast of Christ the King.

Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara, a priest from the Indian state of Kerala, was canonized along with Sister Euphrasia Eluvathingal, who belonged to the Congregation of the Mother Carmel, founded by St. Chavara. Pope Francis also canonized Italians Giovanni Antonio Fraina, Ludovico da Casoria, Nicola da Longobardi and Amato Ronconi.

Father Chavara, a priest of the Syro Malabar Church, which traces its lineage to St Thomas the Apostle, worked for Indians across religious and caste divides, and many non-Christians today say they are in his debt for the work he did. As Kerela's chief minister Oommen Chandy, an Orthodox Christian, put it, the priest "is not the exclusive heritage of a denomination or a community. He belongs to the whole Kerala.”

Chandy led a delegation of Kerala’s political leaders, including Hindu ministers in his cabinet, to a Mass Sunday at St. Chavara’s shrine at Mannanam. The Mass drew about 100,000 people.

Father Chavara founded St. Joseph’s monastery on top of Mannanam hill in 1831 and spent 33 years there. His body was moved here in 1889, and the place has been one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Kerala for decades.

“Father Chavara was a revolutionary both in spiritual matters and in social action. He paved the way for the social transformation and educational progress of our state,” Chandy acknowledged.

Kerala’s progress in the field of education is rooted in the “outcome of Father Chavara’s order” that each church should have a school to educate the low castes who were not allowed to enter schools at the time, Chandy said.

Kerala is the largest Christian pocket in India with nearly 7 million Christians among its 35 million people.  It is also the most literate and educationally advanced in India. The Church there runs nearly half of the 15,000 private primary schools.

“Father Chavara pioneered many social service initiatives like education of the weaker sections, free lunch for the poor, and empowerment of women,” noted Ramesh Chennithala, a Hindu and Kerala’s home minister. “The government is only following some of the examples Father Chavara showed us,” he added.

Thirvanjur Radhakrishan, another Hindu minister in the Kerala government, hailed St. Chavara as a “friend of the poor.”

Earlier, Bishop Mathew Arackal of the Syro-Malabar Eparchy of Kanjirappilly spoke of the “unique legacy” of Chavara, who “went around begging for money to provide lunch to hungry students” from lower castes.

He pointed out that the priest opened the first Sanskrit school in 1846 (at the monastery compound) at a time when lower castes were punished for studying the language of the priestly Brahmin class.

“It was a bold step for the lifting up of the poor,” Bishop Arackal said.

“Saints are not created in the Vatican. They are born and live among us. I am proud to say that I am from Mannanam,” C V Anand Bose, a Hindu and senior official in the Indian government, told Aleteia November 25 on flying back to New Delhi after attending the celebrations at Mannanam.

“Our family is grateful to Father Chavara for encouraging the education of women. We are beneficiaries of that,” said Bose, who belongs to a Nair family which used to shun the education of women.

“Inspired by Father Chavara’s teachings, my grandmother Naniammma sent my mother for English medium education in a Catholic school. The result is that all of us are highly educated,” said Bose, who qualified for the prestigious ‘“Indian Administrative Service” in 1977.

Bose added that his great-great grandfather Iswaran Nair was a close friend of Father Chavara who used to visit their ancestral home regularly.

“It is a difficult task to summarize the multifarious life witness of Father Chavara,” Cardinal George Alencherry, Major Archbishop of the Syro Malabar Church, wrote in an introduction to the souvenir pamphlet.

Born in 1805, Chavara was ordained a priest in 1829. Two years later, he co-founded the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, the first indigenous congregation which now has more than 3,000 professed members of men.

In 1866, Father Chavara also founded the Congregation of the Mother Carmel, which now has over 6500 nuns.

The canonization of St. Chavara, who had been beatified by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Kottayam in 1986, also drew massive crowds at Koonammavu where he died and at his native parish of Kainakiry.

Anto Akkara writes from New Delhi, India.
 

Top 10 Studies Showing Risks to Couples in Same-Sex Unions

Risks show how misguided are the Human Rights Campaign's attacks on U.S. bishops and Courage

Last month the LGBT-activist Human Rights Campaign (HRC) carried out its latest campaign – targeting eight Catholic bishops in the U.S. who publicly expressed support for traditional marriage, the Courage apostolate and, in some cases, even quoted the constant teaching of the Church (see CCC nos. 2357 -2359) concerning homosexual conduct and persons with same-sex attraction (SSA). The aim of this Synod-related effort was to push for the acceptance of homosexual conduct and unions by the Catholic Church and to marginalize bishops who spoke out against such conduct and unions.

The demonstrations against these bishops likely had no effect on the Extraordinary Synod or the targeted bishops. The HRC-friendly confusing language on homosexual persons and unions in the interim report was replaced by paragraph 55 in the final, official Relatio, which reverted to Catholic teaching as set forth in the Catechism. Yet, a surprising one-third of the bishops at the Extraordinary Synod (62/180) rejected the approach based on the Catechism and a 2003statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: “‘There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.’ Nevertheless, men and women with a homosexual tendency ought to be received with respect and sensitivity” (no. 55).

It is hoped that during the Synod on the Family that will take place in October 2015, the discussion of homosexual unions will take into account the serious risk factors inherent in the homosexual lifestyle. In fact, an understanding of these physical, emotional and spiritual risks is essential to fostering a charitable, pastoral approach to those with SSA. I use the term “fostering” rather than developing because such an outreach to those with homosexual tendencies and their families has been present internationally in the Church for over 30 years, thanks to the apostolate of Courage International (www.couragerc.net).

Today, numerous peer-reviewed published studies report serious psychological and medical risks associated with same sex unions. Ten of these studies are described below.

1.  One of the most extensive studies of same-sex couples found that only seven of the 156 couples had a completely exclusive sexual relationship and that the majority of relationships lasted less than five years. Couples whose relationship lasted longer than five years incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity in their relationship. The psychologists wrote, “The single most important factor that keeps couples together past the 10-year mark is the lack of possessiveness. ... Many couples learn very early in their relationship that ownership of each other sexually can be the greatest internal threat to their staying together” (McWhirter, D. and Mattison, A. 1985. “The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop.” (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall). The risks? Outside sexual activity can expose the partner to sexually-transmitted diseases, and relationship break-up typically gives rise to emotional distress.

2.  Partner instability is also present in lesbian relationships. A 2010 study in a respected peer-reviewed journal, showed lesbian relationships to be statistically less stable than heterosexual relationships. (Schumm, W. 2010. “Comparative Relationship Stability of Lesbian Mother and Heterosexual Mother Families: A Review of Evidence,”  Marriage and Family Review 46: 499-509)

3.  A 2011 study analyzed the impact of sexual orientation on suicide mortality in Denmark during the first 12 years after legalization of same-sex registered domestic partnerships (RDPs), using data from death certificates issued between 1990-2001 and Danish census population estimates. This study found that the age-adjusted suicide risk for same-sex RDP men was nearly eight times greater than the suicide risk for men in a heterosexual marriage. (Mathy, R. et al. 2011. “The Association between Relationship Markers of Sexual Orientation and Suicide: Denmark, 1990-2001,” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 46: 111-117)

4.  In a 2010 report, the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, 40 percent of the lesbian couples who had conceived a child by artificial insemination had broken up. (Gartrell, N. & Bos, H. 2010. “U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Psychological Adjustment of 17-year-old Adolescents,” Pediatrics, 126 (1): 28-36.)

5.  A 2002 study of lifetime abuse victimization revealed that 7 percent of heterosexual males reported being abused whereas 39 percent of males with SSA reported being abused by other males with SSA. (Greenwood, G. et al. 2002. “Battering victimization among a probability-based sample of men who have sex with men,” American Journal of Public Health, 92:1964–69).

6.  A major study published in the journal “Cancer” in May 2011 revealed that men with SSA in California are twice as likely to report a cancer as heterosexual men. Most troubling is the mean age of onset of cancer in the men with SSA - age 41, compared to age 51 in heterosexual males. (Boehmer, U. et al. 2011, “Cancer Survivorship and Sexual Orientation,” Cancer, 117:3796–3804.)

7.  A November 12, 2014 article in the “Wall St. Journal” on HPV-related cancers throat cancers stated that it increased by 72 percent between 2000 and 2004. Most of that growth has been in men and the number of sexual partners was suggested as a contributing factor. A researcher stated that, “the problem with HPV-positive oral cancer is that premalignant lesions are not clinically detectable. They’re deep within the tonsils that are in the base of the tongue. By the time HPV-infection is detected, they usually already have Stage 3 or 4 cancer.”

7.  Finneran and Stephenson (2012) conducted a systematic review of 28 studies examining interpersonal violence among men who have sex with men. The authors concluded that, “The emergent evidence reviewed here demonstrates that IPV – psychological, physical, and sexual – occurs in male-male partnerships at alarming rates” (p. 180). (Finneran, C., Stephenson, R. 2012. “Intimate Partner Violence Among Men Who Have Sex With Men: A Systematic Review,” Trauma, Violence and Abuse, 14: 168-185.)

8.  A 2007 study published by the New York Academy of Medicine found that over 32 percent of active homosexuals report that they have suffered “abuse” by one or more “partners” during the course of their lives. Fifty-four percent (n?=?144) of men reporting any history of abuse reported more than one form. Depression and substance abuse were among the strongest correlates of intimate partner abuse. (Houston, E. & McKiman, D.J. 2007, “Intimate Partner Abuse Among Gay and Bisexual Men: Risk Correlates and Health Outcomes,” Journal of Urban Health 84: 681-690.)

9.  A 2014 systematic review of 19 studies examining associations between intimate partner violence (IPV) and men with SSA. The pooled lifetime prevalence rate of any form of IPV was 48 percent. (Buller, A. et al. 2014. “Associations between Intimate Partner Violence and Health among Men Who Have Sex with Men: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” PLOS Medicine, 11(3): e1001609. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001609.)

10. Research on men with SSA in Amsterdam found that 86 percent of new HIV infections occur within steady partnerships. The researchers concluded, “Prevention measures should address risky behavior, especially with steady partners, and the promotion of HIV testing.” (Xiridou, M. et al., 2003. “The contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam,” AIDS 17:1029-38.)

Research on persons who had sought help from Courage revealed that those with SSA had more mental health distress than a heterosexually-oriented, normative sample. SSA respondents who had become more chaste had an improvement in their overall mental health. Measures of authentic spirituality were also positively correlated to increased mental health. Positive correlations were also found between chastity, religious participation and self-reported measures of happiness. (Harris, S. 2009. “Mental health, chastity and religious participation in a population of same-sex attracted men.” Doctoral dissertation.)

The recommendation of an international expansion of this effective apostolate should be considered by the Synod as a primary pastoral outreach to those with homosexual tendencies and their families. As St. John Paul II said of this apostolate, "COURAGE is doing the work of God!"

Rick Fitzgibbons, MD  is the director of the Institute for Marital Healing outside Philadelphia and has worked with several thousand couples over the past 38 years. Trained in psychiatry at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center, he participated in cognitive therapy research with Aaron T. Beck. In 1986 he wrote a seminal paper on the psychotherapeutic uses of forgiveness in the treatment of excessive anger and in 2000 coauthored  Helping Clients Forgive: An Empirical Guide for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope  with Dr. Robert D. Enright, University of Wisconsin, Madison, for American Psychological Association Books. The second edition of this book is in press. He has been an adjunct professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for the Studies of Marriage and Family (The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC) and a consultor to the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy
 

Are we entering the age of Asian saints?

Recent Indian canonizations are a matter of pride for the 'Third Church'.

Posted on November 24, 2014, 3:04 PM

By Fr Dominic Emmanuel
New Delhi:
It is widely believed and accepted — although there is a lack of incontrovertible evidence — that Christianity was brought to India by two of Jesus’s apostles, Thomas and Bartholomew.

Thus, Christianity can be said to have existed in India from almost the time the religion was born.

Despite this, the names of Indian Christians — particularly their holy credentials — have somehow not found a prominent place in Church annals.

However, with the canonization of Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Sister Euphrasia on Sunday, Sister Alphonsa a few years ago, and with up to 25 more Indians up for possible sainthood, that situation seems to be changing fast.

The question that naturally springs to mind is, why have things changed so quickly?

Is it because the rules for canonization have been changed or relaxed? Is it because Catholics in India have become more holy in recent times? Is it because people here are being noticed because of their new social and economic status? Or has the Vatican become more sympathetic towards the faithful in this region?

In his 1974 book: The Coming of the Third Church, Swiss Capuchin Walbert Buhlmann predicted the rise of Christianity outside of Western Europe, which he coined the “Second Church”. The “First Church” being Christianity in its formative years in the Middle East.

Buhlmann, observing changes in the world, especially after the Second Vatican Council (1963-65), said: “The Church at home in the Western world for almost 2,000 years will, in a short time, have shifted its centre of gravity into the Third World, where its adherents will be much more numerous.”

Similarly, Adrian Hastings, speaking about this shift in 1991, in Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After, wrote: “The geography of the Catholic Church in 1990 has become remarkably different from that of 1960. Where for instance, there was then a mere handful of African bishops, there are now many hundred.”

The recent spurt of canonizations in Asia and moves to put other Asians on the road to sainthood provide sufficient evidence of the accuracy of Buhlmann’s predictions made exactly forty years ago as well as the observations made by Hastings.

With the exception of St Gonsalo Garcia — a Franciscan friar from Maharashtra, who was martyred in Japan along with 25 other missionaries and canonized in 1862 — the naming of new Indian saints and the prospect of more from the predominantly Hindu nation, is certainly a matter of pride for the Third Church.

The line up of several Venerables (on the way to sainthood), Blessed and Saints from India and hopefully in future from other Asian and African countries is certainly a sign of the shifting sands of time and tide.

“Ecclesia in Asia,” a bishops’ synod document released in 1999 in Delhi by late Pope John Paul II (now a saint himself), envisaged the third millennium as the time for "a great harvest of faith" in Asia.

The document said: "Just as in the first millennium the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the Third Christian Millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent."

The 20th century saw more canonizations in Asia than any other time, and the trend is continuing.

In 1984, Pope John Paul II canonized 103 Korean Catholic martyrs. In February this year, Pope Francis declared Paul Yun Ji-chung and 123 companions Venerable and in August he beatified Paul during his visit to Korea, elevating them closer to sainthood. Plans are also afoot to beatify other 20th century Korean Catholics who were killed by communists during the Korean War.

Pope John Paul II was instrumental in declaring saints in Asia. In 1988, he canonized 117 Vietnamese Catholic martyrs. In 2002, he canonized 120 people in China — 87 Chinese Catholics and 33 European missioners — martyred in the past three centuries.

The Philippine's second saint, Pedro Calungsod was canonized in 2012, some 25 year after the country’s first saint — Lorenzo Ruiz — was canonized in 1987.

Sri Lanka will get its first saint when Blessed Joseph Vaz, an Indian missionary, is canonized during Pope Francis's visit there in January.

Looking at this phenomenon from the perspective of faith we must look at the words of Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi who said the beatification and canonization of saints has to take its own time according to God's plan and not human reckoning.

"The declaration of someone as a "saint" by the Church cannot be forced. It is the result of a long-drawn process that follows strict procedures that cannot be bypassed or compromised with,” he said.

“The cult of a Saint emerges from the common people themselves who are the first judges of the exceptional holiness of a life of someone who is dead and gone but who has left behind a brilliant example of authentic Christian life and so is an intercessor on our behalf before the throne of God," he added.

In a country like India, where people have deep spiritual roots, regardless of which religion they may belong to, many more people have certainly led a godly life and are worthy to be considered as saints. Our task would be not just to carry on but intensify that legacy.

Fr Dominic Emmanuel is a media consultant and commentator based in Delhi. He is a priest belonging to the Society of the Divine Word.
 

Pope Francis addresses pilgrims from India

In his remarks, he made special mention of the Catholics in Kerala, thanking them for their “apostolic zeal”.

Posted on November 25, 2014, 8:40 AM

Vatican City:
Pope Francis on Monday greeted pilgrims from India who came to Rome for the canonization of Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Sister Euphrasia Eluvathingal.

“Father Kuriakose Elias was a religious, both active and contemplative, who generously gave his life for the Syro-Malabar Church, putting into action the maxim ‘sanctification of oneself and the salvation of others," Pope Francis said.

“For her part, Sister Euphrasia lived in profound union with God so much so that her life of holiness was an example and an encouragement to the people, who called her ‘Praying Mother’.”

In his remarks, he made special mention of the Church in the Indian state of Kerala, thanking them for their “apostolic zeal”.

Here is the text of the Pope’s address to the pilgrims from India

I am pleased to join you in giving thanks to the Lord for the canonization of two new Indian saints, both from the State of Kerala. I take this opportunity to thank the Church in India, the Church in Kerala, for all its apostolic vigour and for your witness to the Faith! My heartfelt gratitude! Keep up the good work! Kerala is rich in vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Continue on this path, working through your witness. I thank Cardinal George Alencherry, the Bishops, priests, men and women religious, and each of you, dear brothers and sisters of the Syro-Malabar rite. I remember in a special way the Cardinal of the Syro- Malankara rite: thank you! Did you know that your Syro-Malankara Cardinal is the youngest member of the College of Cardinals?

You have come to Rome in great numbers on this very important occasion, and have been able to live days of faith and ecclesial communion, praying also at the tombs of the Apostles. May this time of celebration and intense spirituality help you to contemplate the marvellous works accomplished by the Lord in the lives and deeds of these new saints.

Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Sister Euphrasia Eluvathingal, who was a member of the religious Institute founded by him, remind each of us that God’s love is the source, the support and the goal of all holiness, while love of neighbour is the clearest manifestation of love for God.

Father Kuriakose Elias was a religious, both active and contemplative, who generously gave his life for the Syro-Malabar Church, putting into action the maxim “sanctification of oneself and the salvation of others”. For her part, Sister Euphrasia lived in profound union with God so much so that her life of holiness was an example and an encouragement to the people, who called her “Praying Mother”. There are many consecrated religious here today, especially consecrated women. May you also may be known as “Praying Sisters”.

Dear brothers and sisters, may these new saints help you to treasure their lessons of evangelical living. Follow in their footsteps and imitate them, in a particular way, through love of Jesus in the Eucharist and love of the Church. Thus you will advance along the path to holiness. With this hope and the assurance of my prayers, I impart to each of you and to all your loved ones my Apostolic Blessing. Thank you!
 

Millions expected to venerate remains of Saint Francis Xavier

Preparations are underway in Goa for the once-a-decade event.

By Christopher Joseph. Old Goa:  - Posted on November 20, 2014

Some five million people are expected to venerate the remains of the 16th century Spanish missionary Francis Xavier when they are exhibited for 40 days beginning this weekend in Goa. For the once-a-decade event, the government of Goa has allotted some US$1.6 million to renovate and build infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and accommodation facilities. Officially called the "Exposition of the Sacred Relics of St Francis Xavier," it has become a state-Church collaborative event, promoted by the state's Tourism Department.

The main attraction is the remains of the saint, who died in 1552. The remains are preserved in a glass-paneled silver casket and kept inside the 16th-century Basilica of Bom Jesu (Good Jesus). During the exposition the casket will be kept inside the nearby Se Cathedral, another 16th century building. These buildings and numerous other churches and convents in Old Goa, the former colonial capital of the Portuguese in Asia, are now under the Archeological Survey of India (ASI), a federal agency for the care and maintenance of historically important structures across the nation. "We're determined that this event is celebrated in all its pomp and piety. We are working with other government agencies and the Church to make it a huge success," said ASI's Gangadhar Koregaonkar, assistant superintending archeological engineer.

Archeological experts, stationed in Goa to oversee painting and maintenance of the buildings, said they want to make sure that temporary structures being put up on the vast campus do not harm the old buildings. The exposition has been increasing in popularity with each event recording a roughly twentyfold increase in the last 30 years, said Father Alfred Vaz, chief of the organizing committee of the Goa archdiocese. "This year we expect some five million people, at least half a million foreigners, to visit and venerate the relics," said the senior priest.

He said for years after the death of the saint on Shangchuan Island near China in 1552, the body was considered "uncorrupt" but the miracle of the body ended long ago. "What we now have is only the relics or remains of the body," he said. The clothed skeleton can be seen through the glass panels of the silver case with the help of a light inside. Fr Vaz said people look forward to the exposition "to see the relics closer and kiss them seeking the blessings" of the saint. The body was buried on the island where he died but a year later Jesuits moved it and temporarily buried it inside a church in Malacca. At that time in February 1553, they reportedly found the body “uncorrupt”. In December of the same year, the body was shipped to Goa. The first exposition took place 23 years after the Jesuits were expelled in 1759 following the suppression of their society. The 1782 exposition was, historians say, to ally fears that Jesuits took away with them the uncorrupt body of the Jesuit saint.

A series of expositions followed but most of them marked special occasions. Since 1964, however, the relics have been displayed for 40 days every 10 years, covering the saint’s feast day on December 3. Critics like Jose Mario, a Catholic who lives close to the cathedral compound, said the Church is "running a business" with the exposition of the remains of the saint. "It is no more faith. It is a business of donations and no one tells how much they collect."
 He argued that if it were not for the money earned, the exposition would be for a shorter period, there would not be so many donation boxes around, and there would be no real need to keep a dead body unburied especially since officials agree that the miracle of the "uncorrupt body" is over. "My faith should not depend on a body there," he said.

But Fr Vas said such accusations are common from people who do not understand the faith aspect of the event. "I do not know how much in donations we got last time, but the income from such activities go to fund our orphanages and old age homes. And, we don't spend money on this. The government departments take care of it," he said. "For us, this is an occasion to catechize our people. It is an occasion of spiritual renewal for the people," he said explaining several liturgical and biblical programs they have scheduled for the period. And, most Goans who have migrated to other countries and are living in different cities come home for this special occasion, he said explaining the reason for having decennial expositions.

This year organizers are trying to attract more young people to the event by organizing an international FIFA approved soccer match involving teams from Egypt, Brazil, Portugal, Ghana, Nepal, India and Colombia. The teams are scheduled to play in at least four Indian cities, Fr Vaz said. The matches with the theme, "preach from the ground" will cost some $10 million to organize but "we expect to cover at least some of the expenses from the tickets because some of these teams will have World Cup players", the priest said. Goa is well known for soccer in India, "we would like to spread the spirit of Goan football across India with a Christian spirit" as a special exposition program, he said. He also dismissed rumors that this will be the last exposition. "I think these are rumors spread by travel agents to get more customers," he said.

I’m a Divorced and Remarried Mother. Please, Don’t Change Church Practice.

The day my soul became Catholic was the day I found out that as a divorced and remarried woman I could not receive Communion. Tears of sorrow and joy flowed. Sorrow because I had by then grasped the truth of transubstantiation, only to find I couldn’t consume, and joy because at last we found the ground of real authority—his Church, the one he founded, the one tasked to keep all he taught her Apostles.
I came to Catholicism from Calvinism. That’s a tough row to hoe if there ever was one. It was that prescient and beautiful encyclical Humanae Vitae which softened my heart to the Catholic Church. After that, I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to hear what the Church believed in her own words. And so I kept reading—Theology of the Body, Familiaris Consortio, Mulieris Dignitatem, and Church documents significant to those of us coming from the Reformed tradition.

Because I had been divorced, and because another family member recently left his marriage after forty-three years, our children had many doubts and questions about marriage. One day around the dinner table one of the kids voiced their anxiety, stating in our presence that “you never know” if both mom and dad will be there for you as you grow up.
This clued us in to how deeply they had been affected by our choices and the culture that made them possible. As Christian parents we were keen to bring up our children in a Church unwavering on marriage. The Catholic Church offered a rich and beautiful doctrine of marriage in all its fullness, especially as a picture of Christ’s marriage to his bride, the Church. This vision was slowly leading us to consider the Church’s other claims.

But there’s more to coming to the Catholic faith than theological reading. As any convert can attest, there are many ups-and-downs during the journey: Struggling with doctrine followed by insights from magisterial passages coupled with Scripture, feeling still and alone followed by being overwhelmed by the presence of the saints before us, crying out to God for His presence and having Him answer in the Blessed Sacrament. Many times I woke up in the middle of the night thinking: How can I be considering Catholicism? But then in the morning at daily mass praying the liturgy, I experience the profound presence of God, even though I do not take the Eucharist.
Since I cannot now receive the Eucharist, it is through spiritual communion that I am kept spiritually fed by the Lord. This act of willing reception is not, as some may think, second-class communion. Far from it. To believe so is to diminish one of the ways Christ feeds his people, as Hans Urs von Balthasar warns in his book, Prayer:

For spiritual communion is by no means merely an act of longing for the reception of the Lord under the sacramental signs; much deeper, and more properly, it is the act of prayer of a living and understanding faith, by which it enters into living communication and communion with Christ, the eternal and living Truth.
Balthasar wants to impress upon the reader the objective reality of spiritual communion. It is not the absence of something but the presence of him. I don’t get to pine or indulge in self-pity during the distribution of the Eucharist. And God forbid I should become angry with my priest or the Church for not giving me Communion. As Archbishop Charles J. Chaput put it during the 2014 Erasmus lecture, “none of us are welcome on our own terms, in the Church we’re welcome on Jesus’ terms. That’s what it means to be a Christian, you submit yourself to Jesus and His teaching. You don’t recreate your own body of spirituality.”

Before you feel sorry for me, remember that the Church didn’t do this to me. I did this to myself when I disobeyed my God by walking away from my first marriage. Was I young and immature? Yes. Were there circumstances that drove me to such drastic measures? Sure. And yes, I am currently pursuing a Decree of Nullity, trusting God for a just decision. Whatever the outcome, I can not, and will not walk away from the Church for standing firmly on the teachings of Christ.

Some people may be shocked at the idea of submitting to a church that tells me because I’m divorced and remarried I can’t take Communion. But unless it can be shown otherwise, any tampering with Communion for the divorced and remarried will corrupt the doctrine of marriage, and—by diminishing the image of the Church as bride of Christ—debase the Church

I have run to her for shelter. I now pray—for my sake, for my children’s—that the Church will not waver.

Luma Simms is the author of Gospel Amnesia. Follow her @lumasimms.

Chaldean Priests Forced to Choose Between Apostasy and Martyrdom

October 24, 2014 by Kathy Schifferis

Patriarch Sako suspends ten Iraqi-American priests for not returning to Iraq by deadline.

Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, has suspended ten Iraqi-American priests who fled Iraq to escape the Gulf War in the 1990s and established parishes and ministries here in the United States.The Patriarch demanded that the priests return to Iraq before October 22, 2014, or face suspension from priestly ministry.

The head of Chaldean Catholics around the world is concerned that there is a need for priestly ministry and spiritual leadership in Iraq, where any remaining Catholic Christians must live in fear for their lives.  Aleteia interviewed Patriarch Sako during the recent Synod, and His Beatitude explained his decree:

“The priests who escaped without any canonical documents encourage others to leave, including their own families. They have asked for exile in Western countries, while others have remained in fidelity to their people. There is no justice in this. If we do not put a limit on this, others will also leave and the Church and the country will be without Christians.

We have a vocation. A priest has given himself to the Lord and to service: he shouldn’t seek his freedom, his security. His future is found in fidelity to Christ and his people, not in America or Australia. One might say that he has citizenship in these countries, but what does that have to do with the priesthood?

There are also six monks: a monk has chosen community life. How can he leave and go establish a parish in the United States without the permission of his Superior?”

At issue, though, is the safety of any priests who accept the Patriarch's request to return. Chaldeans and other Christians areunder attack by the militant Islamic State, which has ruthlessly bombed Chaldean churches, destroyed monasteries, and driven Chaldeans from their ancestral land. Incidents such as theshooting deaths of a priest and three deacons in Mosul and the 2010 invasion of Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation Syrian Catholic Church, in which three priests and 50 worshippers were murdered by terrorists, demonstrate a sad reality: Muslim extremists will no longer permit the Catholic Church to minister openly in many regions of the country. Any priests who return to the country are likely to be summarily executed.

In August 2014,Catholic News Agency quoted Fr. Nawar, a priest originally from Nineveh who has been living and studying in Rome. “Today the story of Christianity is finished in Iraq,” Father Nawar said. “People can’t stay in Iraq because there is death for whoever stays.”

Here in the United States, tens of thousands of Chaldean Catholics have relocated from Iraq to escape persecution. In the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of St. Peter The Apostle, which covers 19 western states, there are only 14 Chaldean priests to serve an estimated 50,000 Chaldean Christians. Patriarch Sako's decree would remove ten of them from ministry, effective immediately.

The Eparchy of St. Peter The Apostle, based in San Diego, has sent several appeals to Patriarch Sako. but has received no response. On October 22, when the priests named in last month's decree were ordered to return or cease their priestly work, an emergency appeal was filed with the Vatican. The priests are now permitted to exercise their ministry, as they await a response from Pope Francis.

Southern California Public Radio 89.33 KPCC reports that Southern California is home to an estimated 50,000 Chaldeans, mostly in San Diego County. Community leaders and a Chaldean bishop have been lobbying Congress, the State Department, even the United Nations to open the door to more Chaldean refugees.

Mark Arabo is National Spokesperson for the Chaldean Church in the United States, which includes about 250,000 Chaldeans, and is also a member of the church in El Cajon led by Fr. Noel Gorgis, one of the suspended priests. Arabo disagreed with Patriarch Sako—calling His Beatitude's decree “a complete tragedy.”  Many of the priests, he explained, have been in this country for 20 years and have American citizenship. “What the Patriarch is doing is inhumane, it is not even Christian,” Arabo insisted.  “We are going to do everything in our power to make sure these ten priests do not return like cattle to the slaughter in Iraq.

Arabo worried that a suspension of these priests would force the church to cut some services and could affect prayer groups, confession and baptisms.  He added that Sako's recalling of the priests shows the "growing disconnect between himself and our people."

Despite Patriarch Sako's decree, it appears that at least for now it may be impossible for clergy to return to Iraq and to resume priestly ministry. They could return and become martyrs for the faith, inspiring others by their fearless example in the face of adversity. But is this the mission to which they are called? Or are they needed to serve the many thousands here in the U.S. who also want spiritual direction and leadership?

Kathy Schifferis a freelance writer and speaker, and her blog Seasons of Grace can be found on the Catholic Portal at Patheos
 

Pope Emeritus says interreligious dialogue no substitute for mission

By Francis X Rocca on Friday, 24 October 2014

Benedict XVI has said that dialogue with other religions is no substitute for spreading the Gospel to non-Christian cultures, and warned against relativistic ideas of religious truth as “lethal to faith.” He also said the true motivation for missionary work is not to increase the church’s size but to share the joy of knowing Christ.

The retired pope’s words appeared in written remarks to faculty members and students at Rome’s Pontifical Urbanian University, which belongs to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the papal household and personal secretary to the Pope Emeritus, read the 1,800-word message aloud on October 21, at a ceremony dedicating the university’s renovated main lecture hall to the retired pope.

The speech is one of a handful of public statements, including an interview and a published letter to a journalist, that Benedict XVI has made since he retired in February 2013.

“The risen Lord instructed his apostles, and through them his disciples in all ages, to take his word to the ends of the earth and to make disciples of all people,” Benedict XVI wrote.

“‘But does that still apply?’ many inside and outside the Church ask themselves today. ‘Is mission still something for today? Would it not be more appropriate to meet in dialogue among religions and serve together the cause of world peace?’ The counter-question is: ‘Can dialogue substitute for mission?’”

He continued: “In fact, many today think religions should respect each other and, in their dialogue, become a common force for peace. According to this way of thinking, it is usually taken for granted that different religions are variants of one and the same reality. The question of truth, that which originally motivated Christians more than any other, is here put inside parentheses. It is assumed that the authentic truth about God is in the last analysis unreachable and that at best one can represent the ineffable with a variety of symbols. This renunciation of truth seems realistic and useful for peace among religions in the world.

“It is nevertheless lethal to faith. In fact, faith loses its binding character and its seriousness, everything is reduced to interchangeable symbols, capable of referring only distantly to the inaccessible mystery of the divine.”

The Pope Emeritus added that some religions, particularly “tribal religions,” are “waiting for the encounter with Jesus Christ,” but that this “encounter is always reciprocal. Christ is waiting for their history, their wisdom, their vision of the things.” This encounter can also give new life to Christianity, which has grown tired in its historical heartlands, he wrote.

“We proclaim Jesus Christ not to procure as many members as possible for our community, and still less in order to gain power. We speak of him because we feel the duty to transmit that joy which has been given to us.”
 

An Abducted Yazidi Woman Describes the Horrors of the Islamic State

"I want to die so my suffering will come to an end"

October 22, 2014 -Arbil/Aleteia (aleteia.org/ar) – A Yazidi-Iraqi woman abducted by the Islamic State was able to make contact with a BBC correspondent and said that the conditions under which she was being held were deplorable.  She added that “we are still wearing the same summer clothing we were wearing when we were abducted and with winter coming on conditions will worsen. My children were like angels, but the horrible conditions within which we are living currently have completely changed them. It is as though they are no longer children or human beings anymore.”
She further stated that, “The children under twelve years of age are left with their mothers, but the children older than thirteen are taken with the men and no one knows exactly what happens to them. We don’t know anything about them. With regards to the girls, even the younger ones are being taken.”

We were unable to ascertain the name of the woman or where she was being held because she feared for her safety. She was only able to speak by telephone; her only line connecting her with the outside world, because she was able to hide from her captors. She added, “We have been waiting for more than two months for someone to come rescue us, but it has been in vain. I want to die so my suffering will come to an end.”
Yazidi activists estimate that the number of children who have been abducted by IS fighters from various villages throughout the Nineveh Province is approximately 1,500.
Many of them are suffering from dehydration, skin diseases and psychological problems after spending more than two months in captivity. They are accompanied by more than 3,000 women and men who are protecting them in schools, prisons, and apartments in various villages. This has all occurred since ISIS took control of a vast area of northern Iraq.

Noreen Channu, a Yazidi activist in a group that calls itself “Yazidis Around the World” said that they were able to gather data about the whereabouts of Islamic State fighters by speaking with people who had escaped from captivity and through other means as well.
Channu added that “Iraqi, Kurdish, American and British authorities have informed us of the location where many of the captives are being held, but as of yet no one has done anything to rescue them.”

The activist mentioned that she had been in contact with some of the captives via telephone, but has lost contact with many of them over time. Members of the Islamic State may have found out that they had telephones. She also lost contact with some young girls and women after “they were sold and taken out of Iraq to countries like Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.” Channu expressed her feelings of frustration “because the world is sitting idly by while atrocities are being committed against the Yazidi minority.”
Amina Sa’id, a former Yazidi member of Parliament is assisting efforts to draw the International Community’s attention to the plight of the Yazidis. She said, “The International Community is intervening in dozens of countries to fight against the Islamic State. They are arming the Iraqi military and the Peshmerga in Kurdistan for this purpose. However, to date no one who has been abducted has been freed. We hope that they will quickly rescue them because dozens of them have died and have been sold.”
 

ON THE UNREASONABLE CHARACTER OF HOMOSEXUAL ACTS

by Martin Rhonheimer

I wish here to investigate the central idea of the “truth of sexuality,” the idea that human sexuality possesses a truth proper to it, which without relativizing or devaluing its intrinsic goodness as affective and sensual experience, nevertheless transcends and integrates it into the whole of the spiritual dimension of the human person. […]

The truth of sexuality is marriage: union between persons in which the inclination is lived as a preferential choice – "dilectio" – and in which it becomes love, mutual gift, indissoluble communion open to the transmission of life, and friendship in view of a community of life that endures until death. It is in this way, in this specific context – that of conjugal chastity which includes the good of the other person and transcends itself toward the common good of the human species – that sexual activity, including its affective, impulsive and sensual dimensions, is also seen as an authentic ("bonum rationis", something intrinsically reasonable and good thus good for reason. […]

Sexual acts – i.e. sexual intercourse – and sexual activity, as reasonable acts, are therefore necessarily and by their very nature the expression of a love in the context (“ethical context”) of the transmission of life.

Sexual activity that in principle excludes this transmission of life, whether as intentionally procured (as with contracepted heterosexual acts) or “structurally” given (as with homosexual acts), is not a good for reason precisely as sexual activity. It falls to the level of a mere good of the senses, a truncated affectivity, structurally reduced to the sensual, instinctive and impulsive level.

Such a sensual reduction of love and affectivity is also logically possible with heterosexual acts, even apart from contraception, and in marriage. In the case of homosexuality, however, this reduction is not only intentional and voluntarily sought, but “structural,” i.e. given by the very fact that it involves two persons of the same sex who, for biological reasons and by their very nature, cannot be procreative.

The ultimate cause of this reduction is in the fact that we are dealing – as a result of conscious and free choices – with a sexuality without a task or without a “mission, a sexual inclination that does not transcend itself toward an intelligible human good beyond the sexual activity itself, and that cannot therefore become the expression of love between persons and mutual gift. Experience – including that of practicing homosexuals, often deeply anguished – confirms this. […]

With homosexual acts, therefore, the separation between sexuality and procreation is structural. This is why its acts are structurally non-reasonable and therefore morally non-justifiable by their very physical structure or nature. They are what moralists have traditionally called a sin "contra naturam", even if such acts can seem reasonable and justifiable in the context of an affectivity oriented toward the satisfaction of the sensual impulse.

The separation of sexuality and procreation in contemporary culture makes the understanding of the intrinsic non-reasonableness of homosexual acts more difficult. This culture of separating sexuality and procreation, which is encouraged at the global level by easy access to contraceptives, is now the norm; it is the distinctive character of that “sexual revolution” that is a true and proper cultural revolution. One consequence of this revolution is the increasing loss of the understanding of marriage as a project of life, and more specifically, as a project with a social transcendence, capable of uniting two persons who look to the future with the common objective of founding a family that will endure through time.

Homosexual unions cannot define themselves as families in this sense, even if children are present, either as adopted or as “made” through reproductive technologies. Such “families” formed by same-sex couples are only an imitation of a true family, which is a project carried out by two persons through their love and their reciprocal gift in the fullness of their bodily and spiritual being. The “families” of homosexual couples can never realize this project of spousal love at the service of life because the love that is at the basis of these same-sex unions – that is, the sexual acts that claim to be acts of spousal love – are structurally and necessarily, based on their very nature, infecund.

Different, certainly, is the case of a heterosexual couple which, for reasons independent of the wills of the partners, cannot have children and for this reason adopt one or more children. In this case, in fact, their union is by its nature – that is, structurally – generative. For this reason the intentional structure and moral character of the act of adoption also changes, taking on the value of an alternative way of realizing something to which conjugal union is by its nature predisposed, and in their case is only "per accidens" impeded. The infecundity of such heterosexual couples is not from the nature and structure of their acts but unintentional ("praeter intentionem"); their infecundity is, therefore, not the result of moral disorder so their act of adoption is able to participate in the structure of the intrinsic fecundity of marital love.

The same cannot be said about a couple formed by persons of the same sex: in this case the infecundity is structural and intentionally assumed through the free choice to form precisely this kind of union. In this case there is no link between authentic marital love and adoption, since the former – a marital love that includes an openness to the procreative dimension – is completely absent. For this reason the act of adoption in a homosexual union is purely an imitation – a counterfeit – of that to which marriage is predisposed by its nature.

A final observation: any judgment on homosexuality and its intrinsic non-reasonableness and immorality refers, obviously, solely to sexual acts between persons of the same sex. This does not include a judgment on the mere disposition to such acts which, even if it is considered unreasonable, to the extent that it is not acted upon does not have the character of a moral error.

Even less are we dealing with a judgment on persons with homosexual tendencies, on their personal dignity or their moral character. These are undermined not by tendencies but by free choices to engage in homosexual acts and to adopt a corresponding lifestyle. Precisely these are morally erroneous, and thus evil, choices which alienate their agents from the true human good.

A non-practicing homosexual, on the other hand, who abstains from the practice of homosexual acts, can live the virtue of chastity and all of the other virtues, attaining even the highest degree of holiness.

__________

St. John Paul the Prophet and the Synod

Seeing the Synod through the lens of "Theology of the Body"

TOM HOOPES

day,” Oct. 22, will come in the wake of the 2014 Synod on the Family.

John Paul was a prophet on marriage and the family. He knew exactly the importance of Church teachings on marriage, and he will be praying powerfully for those teachings to transform the world.

Here are five of the Pope’s prophetic teachings on the family that are even more relevant today than they were when he pronounced them.

1. Destroy the family and you destroy civilization.
Said St. John Paul II: “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
To St. John Paul II, everything depends on the family. The family is where we learn faith. The family is where we learn to love. The family is where we learn our nation’s culture.

The family is not just the foundation of society to John Paul II — it’s the glue that holds it together.

In Centesimus Annus , he wrote that “the individual today is often suffocated between two extremes represented by the state and the marketplace.” It is primarily families that “strengthen the social fabric, preventing society from becoming an anonymous and impersonal mass, as unfortunately often happens today.”

To a bureaucrat, we are a social security number. To a merchant, we are a dollar sign. We are of infinite dignity and value, to be loved unconditionally — but only our families ever come close to treating us that way.

2.Our bodies have a meaning.
Said St. John Paul II: “Families will be the first victims of the evils that they have done no more than note with indifference.”

The new fad today is to reinvent ourselves radically without reference to who we are made to be. But St. John Paul II had a deep understanding of the danger posed by refusals to take man as he is found.

His Theology of the Body saw clues embedded by God in our very bodies that show the enormous importance of marriage and the family. Fundamentally, John Paul’s Theology of the Body is the recognition that we are built for each other — man for woman and vice versa.

His “nuptial meaning of the body” describes not just the sexual compatibility of man and woman but also the emotional and psychological complementarity of “feminine genius” and those sons of Adam who was “not meant to be alone.”
Only by being true to our bodies can we “become who we are” in his memorable phrase.

3. Contraception changes relationships for the worst.
Said St. John Paul II: “The two dimensions of conjugal union, the unitive and the procreative, cannot be artificially separated without damaging the deepest truth of the conjugal act itself.”

The results of the contraceptive revolution have been devastating to families. Thinkers like Mary Eberstadt and Janet Smith has done an excellent job of showing how it has led to divorce, abortion and a host of other ills.

And it stands to reason: the more sex is reduced to recreation on the one hand, or a physical urge on the other, the less it speaks to the real needs of couples. In often frank language, St. John Paul saw especially the importance of “the moment in which a man and a woman, uniting ‘in one flesh’, can become parents.”

At that moment, he said, “The two dimensions of conjugal union, the unitive and the procreative, cannot be artificially separated without damaging the deepest truth of the conjugal act itself.”

4. Witnessing to the family life is a primary call of the New Evangelization.
Said St. John Paul II: “To bear witness to the inestimable value of the indissolubility and fidelity of marriage is one of the most precious and most urgent tasks of Christian couples in our time.”

The greatest answer to the world’s questions and concerns about marriage and family, said St. Pope John Paul II, was to see it witnessed and lived by Catholics.

He used the word “witness” 40 times in his groundbreaking document on the Family in the Modern World.
The only way to “win” on marriage and family is the hard way. No one will follow Church teaching unless each of us becomes a “genuine witness” a “credible witness” a “witness of love”  a “witness of faith” — a “witness of a life lived in conformity with the divine law in all its aspects.”

5. Threats to the family are as urgent as threats to peace.
“At the start of a millennium which began with the terrifying attacks of September 11, 2001 … one cannot recite the Rosary without feeling caught up in a clear commitment to advancing peace,” said St. John Paul II, then added, “A similar need for commitment and prayer arises in relation to another critical contemporary issue: the family.”

It was when Pope John Paul II made that urgent call  that my own family, which had been spotty at best at praying the rosary, began to do so in earnest. This October, the month of the rosary, is a great time to redouble our efforts.
St. John Paul was indeed a prophet: Lose the family and you lose personal identity, real couple love and  solidarity, the love that holds society together.

Lose the family and you lose everything.

As Cardinal George Pell of Australia said at the close of the Synod, we are in no danger of losing our rich Catholic teaching on the family. “Our task now is to ask people to pause, pray, and catch their breath.”

St. John Paul II, join us in this prayer. Help us be worthy witnesses of the great and vital truths of the family that you expressed so eloquently — and so urgently.
 
 

The Christian minority in India is under serious threat

Bhubaneswar, India, Oct 15, 2014 / 12:04 pm (Aid to the Church in Need).- With the election of Narendra Modi of the Hindu "Bharatiya Janata Party” (BJP) as prime minister of India the country's secular constitution has come under threat, a Catholic priest in India has charged.
Father Ajay Kumar Singh, a human rights activist in Kandhamal District in the East Indian state of Odisha (formerly Orissa), warned of the growing influence of radical Hindu forces on the Indian subcontinent.
"Especially under threat is the Christian minority because it is rejected by extremists as alien and because the Christian message is threat to the caste system," the priest said in an interview with international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need.

According to Father Kumar Singh – who is associated with the “Odisha Forum for Social Action" – the BJP aims to establish a state religion which excludes the lower castes and all minorities.
"They even want to impose only one language, Sanskrit, even though hundreds of languages are spoken in India," he continued, adding that the strength of party and the movement it represents has become the strongest political force in India, taking many observers, including Church leaders and their flock, by surprise.
"It is important for us to understand what is happening. As a Church we must think way beyond the bounds of the individual dioceses; we must act regionally and nationally in order to find responses to this challenge,” the priest said.
“Otherwise Orissa 2008 will be repeated, even worse than then because we learned no lessons from it,” the priest said, referring to August 2008, when Hindu nationalists attacked villages of Christian dalits or “untouchables,” belonging to the lowest caste in the Hindu social hierarchy.

The violence left more than 100 dead, according to the "National People’s Tribunal” (NPT), an association of human rights activists in Odisha.
According to the NPT, the attacks had been prepared well in advance: more than 600 villages were looted, with 5,600 houses, 295 churches and 13 schools destroyed. More than 54,000 people were made homeless, and of this number 30,000 have not been able to return to their villages.
Around 10,000 children were robbed of the possibility to attend school because they were forced to flee and were displaced.  Some 2,000 Christians were compelled to deny their faith. Numerous women were raped. Many of the perpetrators of the violence—though they are known to authorities—have never been charged.

Father Kumar Singh is afraid history might repeat itself.
Aid to the Church in Need is an international Catholic charity under the guidance of the Holy See, providing assistance to the suffering and persecuted Church in more than 140 countries.www.churchinneed.org (USA); www.acnuk.org (UK); www.aidtochurch.org (AUS); www.acnireland.org (IRL); www.acn-aed-ca.org (CAN) www.acnmalta.org (Malta)

BBC political correspondent Martina Purdy quits journalism to become a nun

PUBLISHED: 07:46 GMT, 15 October 2014

One of the BBC's top political reporters has given up her 25-year career in journalism to join a convent of nuns called the Adoration Sisters.

Northern Ireland political reporter Martina Purdy, who has been with the BBC for 15 years, announced her decision to become a nun and focus on 'new challenges' last week.
She was then photographed at the weekend dressed casually on her way to Sunday Mass at St Peter's Cathedral, Belfast, alongside six members of the Adoration Convent.
In a statement posted on her Twitter page, she said: 'I've been a journalist now for almost 25 years, 15 of them at the BBC.

'It has been an immensely rewarding profession and I'm very grateful for all the support I've had over many years from colleagues, family, contacts and friends.
Ms Purdy added: 'I know many people will not understand this decision. It is a decision that I have not come to lightly, but it is one that I make with love and great joy. I ask for prayers as I embark on this path with all humility, faith and trust.'

She went on to ask that the privacy of the Adoration Sisters - a self-described 'contemplative community' which makes altar breads - be respected as she faces 'the new challenges' of her life.
She went on to offer her thanks via Twitter to those who had shown their support for her decision
After which she added she wouldn't be giving a 'running commentary' on her new lifestyle

Following the announcement she tweeted: 'Thanks all for your generosity - from those of my faith, other faiths, those trying to find Him, those trying to ignore Him. God bless you.'
And in a final tweet, she added: 'I'm not planning a running commentary - but I'm truly overwhelmed. x.'
Ms Purdy, who was born in Belfast but brought up in Canada, joined the BBC Northern Ireland in 1999 after working as a newspaper journalist.
She was known as a familiar figure in the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, covering Northern Irish politics for television and radio.Kathleen Carragher, head of news for BBC Northern Ireland, paid tribute to Ms Purdy, saying: 'We will miss her wit and wisdom. I wish her happiness and fulfilment in her new life.'
 

Yoga Banned at Austria School for Biblical Reasons

Friday, October 10, 2014

A primary school in Austria has dropped yoga classes for children after a mother argued Yoga goes against Christian teachings.
Ingrid Karner taught yoga to students once a month at the school in Dechantskirchen.
But she told the Kleine Zeitung newspaper she was told to stop the classes after a complaint.

"All I heard was that according to the Bible yoga should not be allowed and it would lead the children in the wrong direction," Karner said.

The school principal told a newspaper no parents had complained when the courses started this year.
A school inspector says schools should not offer anything linked to "esoteric" practices.Yoga began in Hinduism and Buddhism but has been widely accepted in modern society.
 

Six miles from ISIS: A shockingly brave priest returns to Iraq

By Elise Harris

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2014 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Ghazwan Yousif Baho had the option to stay in Italy when he recently accompanied an elderly Iraqi couple to an audience with Pope Francis.

 But he has decided to go back because he can't leave his people.

“One of them told me, 'Father, I saw you always from afar, but this week I found out who you are, and it has given me so much strength (to know) that you are a priest in the middle of your people,'” he told CNA Oct. 4.

“Sometimes I thought about leaving Iraq, but now I say, 'I don't leave my village anymore.'”

Fr. Baho is the parish priest in Alqosh, Iraq as well as a guest professor at the Pontifical Urbanianum University in Rome, where he teaches two months out of the year. While in Rome, he also serves as pastor in the city's Joachim and Ann parish. He was present in Rome to accompany an elderly Iraqi couple, Mubarack and Agnese Hano, to an audience Pope Francis held with elderly and grandparents on Sept. 28. He will return to Alqosh, which sits only 10 kilometers – around six miles – from the ISIS-controlled city of Qaraqosh, this weekend. The militant Sunni Islamist organization was among the rebels fighting in the Syrian civil war. In June it spread its operations to Iraq, taking control of Mosul and swaths of territory in the country's north and west, as well as in northern Syria.

It has now declared a caliphate, which is defined as an Islamic state controlled by a religious and political leader known as a caliph or “successor” to Muhammad. In Syria on Aug. 13, ISIS seized a string of towns located northeast of Aleppo and near the Turkish border, including Akhtarin. On Aug. 11 it had seized the Iraqi town of Jalawla, located 90 miles northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province.  All non-Sunni persons have been persecuted by the Islamic State – tens of thousands of Christians, Yazidis, and Shia Muslims have fled the territory. Since the night of Aug. 6 when ISIS forces entered the city of Qaraqosh, formerly referred to as the Christian capital of Iraq, many have fled and are living in tents as refugees in camps, the priest noted. Despite having lived in these circumstances for two months, many have maintained a strong faith, he explained. “I’ve met very few people who had lost faith and hope. So many suffered, so the sorrowful mysteries for us a daily act. But despite all this suffering, I’ve seen very few people who’ve lost the faith.”

When ISIS attacked the city of Mosul, 40 kilometers from Alqosh, many lost everything including their homes, their jobs, their money and even their wedding rings, which militants would take from persons fleeing the city. However, when he met with families “they would tell me ‘Father, we are safe and all our children are with us. The rest will come later. But we thank God that the Lord has saved us. We have lost everything, but we are saved.’ “I heard this phrase from so many people. Desperate, but they never lost their faith. And these sorrowful mysteries of the rosary for us are a daily reality, but they also give us the strength to keep going.”

Fr. Baho then recalled how he and a few of the others who had fled the city as ISIS approached the nearby Qaraqosh returned after a week to ring the bells of their parish, which had been silent since the Aug. 6 attack. “After a week of this silence of all the bells of the churches on the plains of Nineveh, and they still are in many villages, with a group of guys from the parish, we challenged the fear and we went (back) into the village.” The priest, along with 20 or 30 people who were on guard that night, entered Alqosh again on Sept. 15, where they rang the bells of the parish once again and celebrated Mass. “For me that Mass was a culmination of Christian faith, and with so much pain, with so much fear, we finished the Mass and we returned back to the Kurdish area,” Fr. Baho said.

On the way back, Father said he saw one young man that was with him when he initially fled. This young man told him: “Father, I saw you always from afar, but this week I found out who you are, and it has given me so much strength (to know) that you are a priest in the middle of your people.” Father also said he had written to his fellow priest from his parish in Rome about what they were planning to do: “Today I need to ring the bells that for a week haven’t sounded. I have to do this, even if it’s last time the bells ring, I will do it.”

As they were entering Alqosh to celebrate the Mass, the priest recounted how one young man told him “Father, today we see you a little stronger.” Referring to how his fellow priest had promised to pray a rosary for them, he responded that “Yes, there are people who pray for us, even if they are far, they are united to us in prayer.” “For me this was the day of salvation. From there the people began to have more hope. Different families returned to the city. Also, the war is 10 kilometers from the city, but the people returned. So when I return I’ll go there, to the parish next week,” he said.

In his homily during the Mass, Fr. Baho explained how often times we seek miracles in order know whether or not God is with us, but that the great miracle happened for them when more than 100,000 people escaped at the same time and all managed to get out “sane and safe.” “It was an exodus, exactly an exodus. The third exodus here. The Lord is truly with us. This is a true miracle,” the priest continued, observing how when they all fled from the Plains of Nineveh around 10 p.m. the only thing visible were the lights of the other cars. “If you can imagine 100,000 people leaving together and not even an accident happens, this is a true miracle.”

Many who attended the courageous Mass in Alqosh filmed the event, the video of which was presented to Pope Francis by Fr. Baho and the Hano couple during their encounter with him in his audience with the elderly. “This also gave us the strength, he made us feel that he is very close to us, and he has said many times, and he said it that day, 'I am always close to you. I hear your sufferings and I am united with you in prayer.'” The sounding of the Alqosh church bells in St. Peter’s Square in front of the more than 4,000 people present that day, as well as their broadcast to millions throughout the world, gave witness to the Christian presence in Iraq for more than 2,000 years, the priest said. “So that voice that they wanted to silence rang out even stronger. And this also gave hope.”
 

Full transcript of Pope's in-flight interview from Korea

By Alan Holdren and Andrea Gagliarducci

Pope Francis speaks with journalists on the papal plane on the return flight to Rome August 18, 2014. Credit: Alan Holdren/CNA.

Aboard the papal plane, Aug 18, 2014 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- Speaking to journalists aboard the Aug. 18 flight to Italy from South Korea, Pope Francis said he supports international intervention in Iraq and is willing to go to there personally if it will help end the violence against Christians and other religious minorities.

He also addressed topics ranging from peace efforts between Israel and Palestine, future papal visits, to his personal schedule, relationship with Benedict XVI and life at the Vatican.

Below is a full transcript of the discussion between Pope Francis and journalists during Tuesday's flight.

Korean journalist Sun Yin Park, Yonhap press agency:

In the name of the Korean journalists and our people, I wish to thank you for your visit. You have brought happiness to many people in Korea and thank you for your encouragement for the education of our country. Holy Father, during your visit to Korea, you have reached out to the family of victims of the Sewol ferry disaster and consoled them. Two questions. One, what did you feel when you met them? Two, were you not concerned your actions could be misinterpreted politically?

Pope Francis:

When you find yourself in front of human sorrow, you do what your heart brings you to do. Today, they will say, 'oh, he's done this because he has political intention,' or that other thing. But you can say anything. But, you think about these men and women, mothers and fathers, who lost their children. Brother and sisters who have lost brothers and sisters…to the great sorrow of such a catastrophe. My heart…I'm a priest, you know, and being able to come close like that is the first thing. I know that the consolation I can give with a word of mine isn't a remedy, it doesn't give new life to their dead but the in these moments human proximity gives us strength. There is solidarity. I remember that, as archbishop of Buenos Aires, I lived two of these catastrophes.

One, was a dance hall where you could hear pop music, 193 died (he refers to Cromagnon disco).  And then, another time a catastrophe with a train. I think 120 died. In that time, I felt the same, to come close to make them strong. And if we in these sad moments come close to each other, we help each other so much. And then on the other question and then I'd like to say something more. I put this on (the yellow lace from the victims' relatives). After half a day of wearing it, I took it on for solidarity with them, eh. Someone came up and said, it's better to take it off, eh. You must be neutral (there is a controversy about the responsibility of the tragedy: relatives of victims have touched on government corruption which led to building a ship with sub-par material). But, listen with human sorrow you can't be neutral. It's what I feel. Thanks for this question. Thanks.

American journalist Alan Holdren, Catholic News Agency/ACI PRENSA/ EWTN:

As you know, not long ago the U.S. military forces have started bombing terrorists in Iraq to prevent a genocide. To protect the future of the minorities, I think also of the Catholics under your guidance, do you approve of this American bombing (campaign)?

Pope Francis:

Thanks for such a clear question. In these cases where the is an unjust aggression, I can only say that it is licit to stop the unjust aggressor. I underscore the verb “stop.” I don't saying to bomb or make war, (but) stop it. The means with which it can be stopped should be evaluated. To stop the unjust aggressor is licit. But we also have to have memory, as well, eh. How many times under this excuse of stopping the unjust aggressor the powers have taken control of nations. And, they have made a true war of conquest. One single nation cannot judge how you stop this, how you stop an unjust aggressor. After the Second World War, there was the idea of the United Nations. It must be discussed there and said 'there's an unjust aggressor, it seems so “How do we stop it?” Only that, nothing more. Secondly, the minorities. Thanks for the word because they speak to me of the Christians, poor Christians – it is true, they suffer – and the martyrs – and yes, there are so many martyrs – but here there are men and women, religious minorities, and not all Christian and all are equal before God, no? Stopping the unjust aggressor is a right that humanity has but it is also a right of the aggressor to be stopped so he doesn't do evil.

French journalist Jean Louis de la Vaiessiere, Agence France Press:

As Cardinal Filoni and the Dominican superior Bruno Cadoré, Would you be ready to support a military intervention against the jihadists in Iraqi territory? Another question, do you think of someday being able to go to Iraq, maybe to Kurdistan to sustain the Christian refugees and pray with them in the land where they've lived for 2000 years?

Pope Francis:

Thank you. I have been not long ago with the governor of Kurdistan. He had a very clear thought on the situation and how to find a solution but it was before these last aggressions. And the first question I have responded to. I am only in agreement in the fact that when there is an unjust aggressor that he is stopped. Sorry, I forgot about that. Yes, I am available but I think I can say this. When we heard with my collaborators this situation of the religious minorities and also the problems in that moment of Kurdistan which couldn't receive so many people. It's a problem. It's understood. They couldn't, right? It can't be done and we've thought of so many things. We wrote first of all a communique that Fr. Lombardi wrote in my name. Then, this statement was sent out to all of the nunciatures so that it might be communicated to the governments. Then, we sent a letter to the secretary general of the United Nations. And so many things and in the end we said, eh, sending a personal envoy (who was) Cardinal Filoni. And in the end we have said, and if it were necessary when we return from Korea we can go there. It was one of the possibilities. This was the response. And in this moment, I am ready and right now it isn't the most, the best thing to do but I am disposed for this.

Italian journalist Fabio Zavattaro, Rai Television:

You were the first pope to fly over China. The telegram that you sent to the Chinese president was received without negative comments. Are we passing on to a possible dialogue and would you like to go to China?

Vatican Spokesman Father Federico Lombardi: I can announce that we are now in Chinese airspace so the question is pertinent.

Pope Francis: When we were about to enter into Chinese airspace I was in the cockpit with the pilot. One of them, showed me the registry. Anyway, he said, there were 10 minutes left before entering Chinese airspace. we have ask for authorization. You always ask. 'Is it normal to ask for permission in every nation? Yes.'  I heard how they asked authorization and how they responded. I was a witness to this. Then the pilot said, now we send the telegram. But I don't know how they will have done it by like that. So, then i said goodbye to them and went back to my seat and i prayed a lot for that beautiful and noble Chinese people. a wise people. i think of the great Chinese sages, a history of science and knowledge. Also we Jesuits have a history there, also Father (Matteo) Ricci. And, all thees things came up to my mind. Do I have a wish to go.? Certainly, tomorrow. Yes. We respect the Chinese people. It's just that the Church ask for freedom for its role and for its work. This is another condition. But, do not forget that fundamental letter for the Chinese problem which was the letter sent to the Chinese by Pope Benedict XVI. That letter today is current. Rereading it is good for you. The holy see is always open to being in contact, always, because it has a real esteem for the Chinese people.

Spanish journalist Paloma Garcia Ovejero, Radio Cope:

The next trip will be Albania, then maybe Iraq and the Filippines and Sri Lanka. But where will you go in 2015? I'll tell you also just in case, you know that in Avila and Alba de Tormes there are so many expectations, can they still hope?

Pope Francis: Yes, yeah. The madam president of Korea in perfect Spanish told me “hope is the last thing to go.” That's what she said. Hoping for the unification of Korea, no. That's what she told me. We can hope, no? But it has not been decided...

Journalist: and after Mexico?

Pope Francis:

Now I'll explain. This year, Albania is planned. Some say that the Pope has a style of starting things from the peripheries. But, I'm going to Albania for two important reasons. First, because they were able to make a government – and let's think of the Balkans, eh – a government of national unity among Muslims, Orthodox and Catholics with an inter-religious council that has helped a lot and is balanced. And this is good it is harmonized it. The presence of the Pope to all peoples…but you can work well, eh. I've that it could be a true aid to that noble people. I've also thought of the history of Albania, which of all the nations in the former Yugoslavia was the only one that in its constitution had the practical atheism. If you went to Mass, it was unconstitutional. And then, one of their ministers told me that - and I want to be precise in the number – 1820 churches were destroyed, orthodox and catholic, in that time. And then other churches were made into cinemas and others dance halls. I felt like I needed to go. It's close, done in a day.

Next year, I would like to go to Philadelphia for the encounter of families. I was also invited by the president of the United States to the American congress and by the secretary general of the United Nations in New York. Maybe the three cities together, no? Mexico. The Mexicans would like me to go to Our Lady of Guadalupe. And we could take advantage of that, but it's not certain.

And then Spain. The monarchs have invited me. And the episcopate has invited me. But it's raining invitations to go to Spain, also Santiago di Compostela. But maybe, and I won't say more, because it isn't decided, to go in the morning to Avila and Alba de Tormes and return in the afternoon. It would be possible, yes, but it's not decided. And this is the response. Thank you.

German journalist from KNA:

What type of relationship is there between you and Benedict XVI? Is there an habitual exchange of opinions and ideas? Is there a common project after this encyclical?

Pope Francis:

We see each other. Before leaving I went to see him. He, two weeks prior, had sent me an interesting text and he asked me an opinion. We have a normal relationship because I go back to this idea and maybe a theologian doesn't like it. But, I think that the pope emeritus is not an exception. After so many centuries, he's the first emeritus and let's think that if i am aged and don't have the strength, but it was a beautiful gesture of nobility and also humility and courage. But, I think that 70 years ago also the bishops emeritus were an exception. They didn't exist. Today, the bishops emeritus are an institution. I think that the pope emeritus is already an institution. Why? Our lives are getting longer and at a certain age there is not the capacity to govern well, because the body tires and health perhaps is good but there is the capacity to carry forward all of the problems like those in the governance of the church. I think that Pope Benedict made this gesture of popes emeritus. I repeat that maybe some theologian would say this isn't just, but i think like this. The centuries will tell if it's like this or not, we'll see, but if you can to say to me, 'but do you think that one day if you don't feel like it, will you go on?' But, I would do the same. I would do the same. I will pray, but I would do the same. He opened a door that is institutional not exceptional. And our relationship is one of brothers, truly, but I've said that it's like having a grandfather at home for the wisdom. He has a wisdom with his nuances and it does me well to hear. He encourages me a lot. This is the relationship we have.

Japanese journalist Yoshinori Fukushima:

Your Holiness, Pope Francis, first of all many thanks for this first visit to Asia. During this visit, you met people who have suffered. What did you feel when you greeted the seven 'comfort women' at mass this morning. And regarding the suffering of people, as in Korea there were hidden Christians in Japan and next year will be the 150th anniversary of their coming out (after years of hiding, editor note – see my previous email ). Would it be possible to pray for them together with you in Nagasaki? Thanks.

Pope Francis:

It would be wonderful. I was invited, eh, both by the government and the episcopate I was invited. But suffering. You go back to one of the first questions. The Korean nation is a people that has not lost its dignity. It was a people invaded and humiliated, it has gone through wars and been divided with so much suffering. Yesterday, when I went to the encounter with young people, I visited the museum of the martyrs there. It's terrible the suffering of these people. Simply to not step on the cross. It's a pain, an historical suffering. It has the capacity to suffer this nation and also this is a part of its dignity. Also today, when there were these elderly ladies in front at Mass. Think that during that invasion they were girls taken away to the police stations to be taken advantage of. And they haven't lost their dignity. They were there today showing their faces. These elderly women, the last of them who remain. It's a people strong in their dignity. But going back to martyrdom and suffering, also these women are the fruits of war. Today we are in a world of war. everywhere. Someone told me, 'you know father that we're in the third world war, but in pieces. ' He understood this, no? It is a world in war where they commit these cruelties.

I would like to speak about two words. First, cruelty. Today, children don't count. Once they spoke of 'conventional warfare.' Today this doesn't count. I'm not saying that the conventional war is a good thing, but today the bomb goes and kills the innocent with the culpable with the child and the women and mother. They kill everyone. But, we need to stop and think a bit about what level of cruelty we have reached. This should scare us. And, this is not to create fear. We could make an empirical study. The level of cruelty today of humanity is a bit scary. Another word on which I would like to say something in relation with this is torture. Today, torture is one of the almost ordinary means of acts of intelligence services, of judicial processes. And, torture is a sin against humanity. It is a crime against humanity. And, to Catholics I say that torturing a person is a mortal sin. It is a grave sin. But, it's more. It's a sin against humanity. Cruelty and torture. I would really like it if you in your media were to make a reflection of how you see these things today, how is the level of cruelty of humanity and what you think of torture. I think it would do us all well to think about this.

American journalist Deborah Ball, Wall Street Journal:

Our question is You have a very, very difficult routine. With very little rest and little vacation and you make these hard trips. And then in the last few months we've also seen that you've had to cancel some appointments anche an event. Should we be concerned about the rhythm you carry?

Pope Francis:

Yes, some have told me this. I took my holidays at home as usual. Once I read a book and it's interesting. The title was “Be happy to be neurotic.” I've also got some neuroses. But you have to treat neuroses well, eh. Give them “mate” (an Argentine tea) every day, no? (laughs) One of my neuroses is that I'm too attached to life. The last time I took a vacation outside of Buenos Aires with the Jesuit community was in 1975. But then, I always take holidays. Truly, eh. But at home. I sleep more. I read book that I like. I listen to music. I pray more. In July and a part of August I did this and it was good (for me). The other part of the question, it's true that I’ve had to cancel. That is true. The day I had to go to Gemelli Hospital. 10 minutes before. That there, I just couldn't do it. They were certain very busy days. But I need to be more prudent, you're right.

French journalist Anais Martin, French Radio:

In Rio, when the crowd yelled “Francesco, Francesco!” you responded “Cristo, Cristo!” Today, how do you manage this immense popularity? How do you live it?

Pope Francis:

I don't know how to tell you. I live it thanking the Lord that his people are happy. I really do that, hoping the best for the people of God. I live it as generosity towards the people. On the inside, I try to think of my sins and my errors not to flatter myself because I know it won't last long. Two or three years and then (makes a sound and gesture) up to the house of the of the Father. It's not wise to believe this. I live it as the presence of the Lord in his people who uses his bishop, the shepherd of the people to do so many things. I live it more naturally than before. Before I was a bit scared. Also, it comes to mind not to make errors because you can't do wrong for the people and all these things.

Italian journalist Francesca Paltracca, RAI Radio:

For the Pope who came from the ends of the world and found himself in the Vatican, beyond Saint Martha Residence where you have your life and your choice (to live there)? How does the pope live within the Vatican? They always ask us this, but how does he move around? Does he take walks? You go to the cafeteria. … This is surprising. So, what type of life do you have beyond that of St. Martha?

Pope Francis:

I try to be free. There are appointments of the office, of work. But my life for me is the most normal that I could have. Truly. I would love to be able to leave but you can't…You can't because if you go out the people come so you can't and that's a reality. But there inside in the St Martha, I have a normal life of work and rest and chatting. I have a normal life.

Journalist: Don't you feel imprisoned, then?

Pope Francis:

No, no, at the beginning yes. Now some of the walls on the inside have come down.

Journalist: Which are the walls that have come down?

Pope Francis:

I don't know, the Pope can't… For example, to have a laugh. One goes to the elevator, someone comes because the Pope can't go down in the elevator alone. But, go back to your post because I'm going down alone! That's how it is. It's normality. It's a normality.

Argentine journalist:

Holy Father, sorry for this but I have to ask you as part of the Spanish group from Argentina. I'm going to have to ask you a question that will exhibit your knowledge. Your team for the first time is the champion of America. I would like to know how you're living it, how you found out. They tell me that one of the delegation is coming Wednesday and you're going to receive him during the general audience.

Pope Francis:

It's true that this is the greatest piece of news after the second place (of the Argentine national team) in Brazil. I found out here. In Seoul they told me. Listen, on Wednesday they're coming, eh. They're coming. And, it's a public audience. For me, San Lorenzo is the team for which all of my family were fans. My father played basketball for San Lorenzo. He was a player on the basketball team. And when we were kids, we went and my mom came with us to the Gasometro (San Lorenzo stadium). I remember today the season of 1946. A magnificent team that San Lorenzo had. They came out champions. I live it with joy.

Journalist: Is it a miracle?

Pope Francis:

Miracle? No. (laughs) Miracle, no.

German journalist Juergen Erbacher, German TV:

Holy Father, they have long spoken of an encyclical on ecology. Can you tell us when it will be released? And, which are the central points?

Pope Francis:

This encyclical. I've spoken a lot with Cardinal Turkson and also with others and I have asked Cardinal Turkson to bring together all of the contributions. They arrived. And the week before the trip, no, four days before he delivered the first draft to me. The first draft is this big (gestures). I'd say it's a third bigger than Evangelii Gaudium. And that's the first draft. Now, it's not an easy issue because on the protection of creation and the study of human ecology, you can speak with sure certainty up to a certain point then come the scientific hypotheses some of which are rather sure, others aren't. In an encyclical like this that must be magisterial, it must only go forward on certainties, things that are sure. If the Pope says that the center of the universe is the earth and not the sun, he errs because he says something scientific that isn't right. That's also true here. We need to make the study, number by number, and I think it will become smaller. But going to the essence is what we can affirm with certainty. But, you could say in the notes, in the footnotes, that this is a hypotheses and this and this. To say it as an information, but not in the body of the encyclical which is doctrinal and needs to be certain.

Korean journalist Young Hae Ko, Korean daily newspaper:

Thank you so much for your visit to South Korea. I'm going to ask you two questions. First one is: just before the final mass at the Myeong-dong Cathedral, you consoled the comfort women there. What thought came to you? That's my first question and my second question is Pyongyang sees Christianity as a direct threat to its regime and it's leadership and we know that something terrible happened to North Korean Christianity but we don't know exactly what happened. Is there special effort in your mind to change North Korea's approach to Christianity?

Pope Francis:

The first question. I repeat this. Today, these women were there because despite all they have suffered they have dignity and they showed their faces. I have thought also about what I've said a little bit ago about the sufferings of war, the cruelty brought by a war. These women were taken advantage of, enslaved, but they are all cruelties. I thought of all of this. The dignity they have and also how much they've suffered. Suffering is an inheritance. We say…They first fathers of the Church say that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians. The Korean have planted a lot. A lot. For coherence, no? You now see the fruit of that planting, of the martyrs.

On North Korea, I know what is a sufferance. One, I know for sure, that there are some family members, many family members that cannot reunite and this is true. This is a suffering of that division of the nation. Today in the cathedral where I dressed in the adornments of the Mass, there was a gift they've given me which was a crown of thorns of Christ made with the iron wire that divides the single Korea. We've got this on the airplane. It's a gift I'm carrying. The suffering of the division, of a divided family. As I said yesterday I think, I don't remember, we have a hope. The two Koreas are siblings and they speak the same language. When you speak the same language it's because you have the same mother and this gives us hope. The suffering of division is great and I understand this and I pray that it ends.

American journalist Phil Pulella, Reuters:

I won't stand up because if I do my colleagues from the televisions will kill me. An observation and a question. As an Italian-American I wanted to compliment you on your English. You shouldn't be afraid. And if before you go to America, my homeland, you want to practice I'm available.

(Pope inaudible, making faces about the difficulty of English pronunciation).

Whichever accent you want to use: New Yorker…I'm from New York so I'm available.

So the question is this: You spoke about martyrdom. At what point are we in the process for the bishop Romero? And what would you like to see come out of this process?

Pope Francis:

The process was in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "blocked for prudence," as they said. Now it is unblocked and has passed to the Congregation for Saints and it is following the normal path of a process. It depends on how the postulators move. That's very important to do it quickly. What I would like is that it's clarified when there is martyr in odium fidei (for the hatred of the faith) both for confessing the creed and for doing works that Jesus commands with our neighbor. This is a work of the theologians, who are studying it. Because behind him is a long list and there are others. There are others who were killed but weren't of the same height of Romero. We have to distinguish this theologically, no? For me, Romero is a man of God. He was a man of God. But we have to run the process and the Lord has to give his sign there. But, now the postulators have to move because there are no impediments.

French journalist Celine Noyaux, La Croix:

Seeing the war in Gaza, do you think the prayer for peace organized in the Vatican last June 8 was a failure?

Pope Francis:

Thanks for the question. That prayer for peace, absolutely was not a failure! First, the initiative didn't initiative didn't come from me. The initiative to pray together came from the two presidents. The president of the state of Israel and the president of the State of Palestine. They made the restlessness present to me. Then, we wanted to do it there but we couldn't find the right place because of the political post of each one it was very strong if we did it in one or another part. The nunciature was a neutral site, yes, but to get to the nunciature the president of Palestine had to enter in Israel. The thing wasn't easy. They said, well, let's do it in the Vatican. We'll go. These two men are men of peace. They are men who believe in God. They have lived so many nasty things, so many nasty things. They are convinced that the only path to resolve that situation is negotiation, dialogue, peace.

Your question now. Was it a failure? No, I think that the door is open. All four. With the representative which is Bartholomew. I wanted him to be there as the head of the orthodox, but the ecumenical patriarch of the orthodox. I don't want to use terms that aren't appreciated by all of the orthodox. As ecumenical patriarch, it was good that he was with us. But the door to prayer was opened. We said we needed to pray. It's a gift, peace is a gift. It's a gift that is merited through our work, but it's a gift. And to say to humanity that also the path of dialogue which is important, of dialogue also there is prayer. It's true, after this what happened has happened. But this is given by circumstances.  That encounter wasn't given by circumstances. It's a fundamental step of the human being, prayer. Now the smoke of the bombs of the wars don't allow us to see the door but the door is still open from that moment. As I believe in God, I believe that God is watching that door and all who pray and ask that he help us. I like that question. Thanks for having posed it. Thanks.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Holy Father, thanks a lot. I think you've done more than an hour of conversation also with us and now it's just that you go relax a bit with the end of the voyage. Anyway, we know that on this trip you'll probably go on to Our Lady.

Pope Francis:

From the airport, I'm going to Our Lady. It’s a nice thing. I asked Dr. Giani (the head of the Vatican's gendarme police) to bring roses from Korea with the colors of Korea, but then outside the nunciature a little girl came with a bouquet of flowers and we said why don't we take these flowers from a girl from Korea. That's what we'll do. From the airport, we'll go to pray a bit there and then onwards to home.
 
 
 

Pope's Mass: Lord, send us nuns and priests, free from idolatry of power and money

2014-03-03
During his morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis prayed for vocations, so that young people listen and recognize God's call to service. The Pope explained that when the heart is full of other interests, joy turns to sadness, and there is no desire to show faith in Jesus.

Pope Francis:  "This is the prayer for vocations. ‘Lord, send us nuns and send us priests, defend them from idolatry, the idolatry of vanity, the idolatry of pride, the idolatry of power, the idolatry of money.’ Our prayer is to prepare these hearts so that they are able to follow Jesus closely.”

The Pope's missionary prayer intentions for March also deal with vocations, calling on young people to recognize their vocation for the priesthood and consecrated life.

Excerpt from the Pope's homily:

"His heart was restless, because the Holy Spirit was pushing him to get closer to Jesus and to follow him. But his heart was full and he lacked the courage to empty it. He made his choice: money. His heart was full of money…. But he was not a thief, or a criminal: no, no, no! He was a good man: he had never stolen! He had never cheated anyone: his money had been earned honestly. But his heart was imprisoned, it was attached to money and he lacked the freedom to choose. Money chose for him.”

"We must pray so that the hearts of these young people may be emptied, emptied of other interests and other sentiments, so that they may become free. This is the prayer for vocations. ‘Lord, send us nuns and send us priests, defend them from idolatry, the idolatry of vanity, the idolatry of pride, the idolatry of power, the idolatry of money’. This prayer of ours is to prepare these hearts so that they are able to follow Jesus closely.”

"Lord, help these young people so that they may be free, not slaves, so that their hearts be for You only; so that the call of the Lord can be heard and can bear fruit. This is the prayer for vocations. We must pray a lot. But we must be careful: there are vocations. We must help them to grow, so that the Lord can enter into those hearts and give this indescribable and glorious joy that belongs to every person who follows Jesus closely.”

Firing of Polish doctor over abortion refusal sparks outcry

By Elise Harris

Rome, Italy, Aug 2, 2014 / 04:02 pm (Catholic News Agency :: CNA).- The removal one of Poland's top doctors as director of Holy Family hospital in Warsaw for refusing to perform an abortion has drawn widespread criticism, with many stating the act violated legal grounds.

“The official council in his institution has not found any miscarrying of procedures or breaking of the rules within the hospital,” Catholic advocacy group member Professor Bogna Obidzinska told CNA July 23.

“His decision not to commit the abortion was perfectly within the law, and he had the right, according to the Freedom of Conscious Act,” to refuse. “The only breech they found that he was guilty of was not referring the lady to another abortion clinic, which in fact was not among his obligations because he was not the leading doctor of this woman.”

A representative of Catholic Voices in Poland and professor at the local Bogdan Janski academy, Obidzinska offered her comments in wake of the July 23 dismissal of Doctor Bogdan Chazan from his position as director of Warsaw’s Holy Family Hospital. Chazan was fired after refusing to perform an abortion on a deformed baby who had been conceived through in vitro in a fertility clinic. Catholic Voices is an international organization dedicated to improving Catholic media representation, and has supported numerous petitions advocating on the professor’s behalf, including one on CitizenGo that has obtained more than 85,000 signatures. Although Polish law protects the right of mothers to abort babies conceived in rape and those who are fatally ill up to full term, under the country’s conscience clause no doctor is required to participate in or perform an abortion.  However following his refusal to perform the requested abortion, Chazan’s hospital was fined 70,000 zloty, roughly $23,000. Warsaw’s vice-mayor removed the physician on the grounds that he had not used the conscience clause correctly, which states that if a doctor refuses an abortion, they must refer their patient to another abortionist.

“In Poland, every pregnant woman has a doctor who looks after her throughout the pregnancy,” and for the woman in question “that was not professor Chazan,” Obidzinska stated. “She actually had her doctor, and that doctor later on did provide her with the information she asked.”

Chazan has been given on a three month grace period – which took effect immediately after his July 23 dismissal – and he will be required to officially step down when the hospital appoints a new head. The doctor, who is being represented by Polish organization “Ordo Iuris,” has said that he will launch an appeal, despite the fact that the Warsaw city council stated their ruling cannot be appealed.

“It’s very hard to say why all this is happening, because he’s a successful doctor and he wasn’t even responsible for the woman, she just consulted with him,” the media representative explained, stating that there could be “some kind of jealousy between clinics” due to Chazan's success. Numbers found in the committee of the city of Warsaw's official report on the clinic “state that the number of patients who have used the clinic have tripled over the time when Professor Chazan was appointed, which is about 10 years.” “There has been only one abortion carried out in this clinic over those last 12 years, and the number of caesarian sections has dropped (at least) by half, which means that the quality of the medical care in this hospital must be truly extraordinary.”

In light of this, the professor's dismissal “looks quite artificial, there really seem to be no reasons,” Obidzinska continued.

“The baby was born, the woman is healthy,” and although the baby died as expected a few days after birth, “Professor Chazan actually offered the woman full care in a special unit of the clinic with hospice and with special psychological care for her and for her husband, so she was not just left alone with the problem.”

Referring to how Chazan is being called a “hypocrite” by some due to a previous change in his stance on abortion, Obidzinska noted that “the hypocrisy of those criticizing Dr. Chazan is awful because he has been a well-known doctor for saving lives for at least 15 years now.”

 “People, women in Warsaw know that if they want an abortion they simply don’t go to him. This is common knowledge as well,” she said. “He is famous for doing extraordinary things in order to save life, and he's also known and famous for having saved life where other doctors had thought that pregnancies would naturally end in tragedy,” the media representative observed. “He did save lots and lots of babies. If someone goes to ask him for an abortion that sounds like a provocation. I can’t believe that the woman wouldn’t know he would refuse.”
 

Pope meets with Sudanese Christian woman who faced death sentence for apostasy

July 24, 2014: In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis meets Meriam Ibrahim, from Sudan, with her daughter Maya in her arms, in his Santa Marta residence, at the Vatican. The Sudanese woman who was sentenced to death in Sudan for refusing to recant her Christian faith has arrived in Italy along with her family, including the infant born in prison.AP/L'Osservatore Romano/File

July 24, 2014: Meriam Ibrahim disembarks with her children Maya, in her arms, and Martin, accompanied by Italian deputy Foreign Minister Lapo Pistelli, after landing at Ciampino's military airport on the outskirts of Rome. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca).

Pope Francis met privately Thursday with Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese Christian woman who faced a death sentence for refusing to renounce her faith, blessing the woman after she was flown to Italy on an Italian government jet. The Vatican characterized the visit with Ibrahim, 27, her husband and their two small children as "very affectionate."

The 30-minute encounter took place just hours after the family landed at Rome's Ciampino airport, accompanied by an Italian diplomat who helped negotiate her release, and welcomed by Italy's premier, who hailed it as a "day of celebration." Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the pope "thanked her for her faith and courage, and she thanked him for his prayer and solidarity" during the half-hour meeting Thursday. Francis frequently calls attention to the suffering of those persecuted for their religious beliefs. Lombardi said the presence of "their wonderful small children" added to the affectionate tone of the meeting. Ibrahim was presented with a rosary, a gift from the pope. Ibrahim and her family are expected to spend a few days in Rome before heading to the United States.

Earlier Thursday, Reuters reported that Italian television broadcast images of Ibrahim and her family arriving in Rome with Italian politician Lapo Pistelli. Pistelli had posted a picture on his Facebook page depicting himself with Ibrahim and her two children. The caption, translated from Italian, read "With Meriam, Maya, Martin and [Ibrahim's husband] Daniel, a few minutes from Rome. Mission accomplished." Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was among those who greeted the plane, calling it "a day of celebration." Ibrahim had spent more than a month at the American Embassy in Khartoum after a previous attempt to leave Sudan was halted by that country's authorities. They said she had attempted to use false travel documents, a claim Ibrahim denied.

Last month, Sudan's Supreme Court threw out the death sentence Ibrahim had received for refusing to renounce her Christian faith. Ibrahim's father, a Muslim, claimed she had abandoned Islam and committed adultery with her husband Daniel Wani, a U.S. citizen who lives in New Hampshire. However, Ibrahim insisted that she had been raised Christian by her Ehiopian Orthodox mother after her father left the family when she was still young. Pistelli told the Associated Press that Italy had leveraged its historic ties within the Horn of Africa region to help win her release, though the specifics were not immediately clear. Ibrahim's lawyer, Mohaned Mostafa, told Reuters that he had not been aware of her departure.

"I don't know anything about such news but so far the complaint that was filed against Mariam and which prevents her from travelling from Sudan has not been cancelled," he said.
 

Catholics urged to pray for cancellation of ‘black mass’

An estimated 2,000 people attend holy hour May 12 at St. Paul Church in Cambridge, Mass., in reaction to plans for a satanic ritual “black mass” to be held in a pub on the Harvard University campus. The student group organizing the “black mass” ultimately cancelled the event. (CNS photo/Gregory L. Tracy, Pilot)

Jul 23, 2014

Fr. John Lankeit, rector of Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral in Phoenix, is urging local Catholics to gather for a 7 p.m. holy hour July 25 in order to pray that a black mass scheduled to take place Sept. 21 in Oklahoma City will be canceled.

A black mass is a sacrilegious ceremony that invokes Satan and desecrates a eucharistic host stolen from a Catholic church. The host is then used in a profane, sexual ritual. “We will pray specifically for the cancellation of the black mass,” Fr. Lankeit said. “I am calling on all of the Catholic faithful and people of good will to stand firm against the powers of Hell, and in defense of those vulnerable souls who would be drawn to this evil event.” Archbishop of Oklahoma City Paul Coakley has been an outspoken critic of the black mass.

“There are common standards of decency that civic-minded people uphold that are necessary for constructive public discourse, and this violates all of those standards,” Archbishop Coakley told Catholic News Agency July 16. “This is a mockery of one faith, a hostile act toward a significant faith community, the Catholic community.” It would be “truly offensive to a significant segment of their population, that is the Catholic, and the Christian community at large,” the archbishop added. “Oklahoma is a very church-minded community; there are not many Catholics here, but a great majority are Christian, and this is really an affront to all Christian believers, and I think the more people are recognizing that, the more they’re willing to speak up.”

The occult group Dakhma of Angra Mainyu has been scheduled to hold a black mass at the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall Sept. 21. “I give the benefit of the doubt to those who allowed this civic center to be booked by a satanic group for the purpose of a black mass, because my suspicion is that whoever booked it had no idea what a black mass is, how offensive such a thing is,” Archbishop Coakley reflected. “Initially there was ignorance, I think, about what they were getting into.”

When CNA spoke on July 3 with Jennifer Lindsey-McClintock – the music hall’s public information manager – about the nature of the event, she cited the hall’s neutrality policy saying it’s “not for us to judge…whether it is appropriate or not.” Archbishop Coakley said that “my hope is that through prayer, and through continued communication with the civic officials here, they will come to recognize this is not a prudent course, not a good course, for the city.” He added that he supposes “that if someone desired to rent the civic center to have a public burning of a Quran, or a blatantly anti-semitic sort of program, that the city would rightly find some way to prevent that from happening. And they should. That would be very clear.

“My question, is why can’t they recognize that this is equally offensive to the Catholic community, and act accordingly to prevent such a black eye on the community, such an affront to the Catholic and to the Christian community?” Lindsey-McClintock, however, claimed that as a city-funded facility, they must “operate in a position of neutrality.” She said that this policy would mean the center would host racist or anti-Jewish events “as long as it was not hosting something specifically illegal in nature, or that during the production they were taking part in illegal activities…we do not discriminate against any group based on the content of their message.”

“I think the more people here in Oklahoma, as well as around the country, have heard about this, and reflected upon what exactly it entails, the more outraged, and upset, people have become,” Archbishop Coakley said. Black masses, he said, are a “grievous sacrilege and blasphemy of the first order…taking what is most sacred to us as Catholics, and mocking it, desecrating it, in vile, often violent and sexually explicit ways…It’s obviously horrendous…what they intend to do with that consecrated Host is offensive beyond description.”

Archbishop Coakley called it a “terribly disturbing development in our community, and I think one of the things people need to realize, is this is inviting very dark and evil forces into our community. I think I have an obligation, we have an obligation, to do what we can do to prevent that from happening – unleashing spiritual influences which are harmful and destructive.”

Noting the recently planned black mass at Harvard, another satanic group’s attempt to place a satanic monument at the Oklahoma capitol, and this planned black mass, the archbishop said that “perhaps if anything, it’s a manifestation that these kinds of groups are becoming emboldened because of a certain kind of increasing tolerance for an increasingly outrageous mode of conduct in our culture.

“I hope to be meeting in the near future with civic officials,” he added. “We’ll continue to explore ways of dialoguing with civic officials.”
 “Obviously for us as people of faith, as Catholics, we’re praying for a change of heart, that something will shift, and that there will be a change of direction, and a recognition that this cannot be allowed.”

The archbishop noted that there have been a number of petitions against the event on Facebook and other sites, not organized by the archdiocese, but “very much a grassroots thing.” “My role in this,” Archbishop Coakley said, “is simply to provide a voice, and leadership, drawing attention to it, and encouraging people to pray, and to voice their concern to civic officials.”

Should the black mass not be canceled, the archbishop said the Catholic community will “find a way to lift up the Eucharist in a way that shows our love for Christ in the Eucharist, our respect and honor for the gift of the Blessed Sacrament.” Whether through Masses of reparation, holy hours, or processions, “we will do what we can do to bear witness to our faith in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist,” Archbishop Coakley said.
 

A Voice Against Oppression Martyred 30 Years Ago - Bl. Jerzy Popieluszko

Bl. Jerzy Popieluszko's meek but fearless counsel to Solidarity offers lessons we'd be well to heed.

SR. M. MICHELE JASCENIA, SCMC (2) July 22, 2014

The life and martyrdom of Bl. Jerzy Popieluszko—just 30 years ago—is probably little known outside the Polish and Polish-American communities. They should be. How he counseled and spiritually led the then growing opposition to the Communist regime in Poland is a model that we could do well to emulate today wherever human rights are being systematically violated.

On 6 June 2010, Pope Benedict XVI beatified Father Jerzy Popieluszko. Father Popieluszko was abducted and murdered by the Communist secret police in October 1984, at the age of thirty-seven.

Blessed Jerzy  was  a chaplain and influential advocate of the Solidarity movement. His gentle words of encouragement, his dedication to the Gospel message in the midst of immense pressure and threats from the government and law enforcement were like living flames from the Holy Spirit—warning, warming and lighting the way for thousands of Polish people who knew firsthand the denial of basic human rights, and in particular the denial of religious freedom. The predominantly Catholic Poles hungered for freedom.

Father Jerzy took their hearts into his own heart and made their hunger his hunger, their struggle his struggle, their pain, his pain.  Father reminded the many who attended his Masses about God’s love, His strength, His truth. He used the words of Jesus to maintain peace while encouraging their perseverance. Though the government reacted with violence, Father was able to keep the crowds focused on Jesus’ way—the way of prayerfully, peacefully, trustingly moving forward regardless of what retaliation the government promised. Such retaliation did come and it was often brutal. Still, Blessed Jerzy would not back down. The people would not back down in spite of arrests, violence, and at times, bloodshed. The faithful stood firm in the face of powerful opposition.

Father Popieluszko gave witness to how every Christian must respond to pressure, threats and  physical  and or psychological attacks. The Gospel, the crucifix, as well as patience and adherence to the truth were their shields; prayer was their weapon; unity and perseverance marked the mindset of Solidarity. Father led his people to Christ and led them with Christ against a godless government.

Blessed Jerzy paid for this with his life. The Polish people paid with their hearts, for when Father was taken from them, they had to carry on without his gentle encouragement, his loving and understanding presence. What Father Popieluszko planted in their hearts and souls, however, even the Communist government of Poland could not destroy with all its cold and deadly force. It could not even weaken their resolve. On the contrary, government retaliation only served to strengthen the Polish people.

The blood of Father Popieluszko watered the seeds of faith and the Gospel message in the lives of the people. The witness of Blessed Jerzy, his sacrifice on their behalf and on behalf of all of Poland, had already secured a victory. No one can kill God, even in His witnesses. The power of charity and the power of sacrifice, in imitation of Jesus’ love and sacrifice on the Cross, marked a new beginning in the struggle.

We, too, must make Blessed Popieluszko’s example our own. May his witness keep us strong in the Spirit, urging us on to be witnesses to the truth, to the Gospel, and to the love and gentleness of Christ. May Father Popieluszko help to strengthen our wills to do what is good and true; and with the power of Christ and His Cross, may this martyr of Poland help us to persevere in our struggle for freedom, and for truth.

Sr. M. Michele Jascenia, S.C.M.C. is a religious with the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady Mother of the Church and resides at their Holy Family Motherhouse in Baltic, Ct. She teaches elementary school and is a freelance writer
 

Iraq Catholic leader says Islamic State worse than Genghis Khan

BY DOMINIC EVANS AND RAHEEM SALMAN
BAGHDAD Mon Jul 21, 2014 12:23am BST

Iraqi Christians fleeing the violence in the Iraqi city of Mosul, pray at the Mar Afram church at the town of Qaraqush in province of Nineveh, July 19, 2014. REUTERS-Stringer

CREDIT: REUTERS/STRINGER

(Reuters) - The head of Iraq's largest church said on Sunday that Islamic State militants who drove Christians out of Mosul were worse than Mongol leader Genghis Khan and his grandson Hulagu who ransacked medieval Baghdad.
 Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako led a wave of condemnation for the Sunni Islamists who demanded Christians either convert, submit to their radical rule and pay a religious levy or face death by the sword.
 At the Vatican, Pope Francis decried what he said was the persecution of Christians in the birthplace of their faith, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the Islamic State's actions could constitute a crime against humanity.

Hundreds of Christian families left Mosul ahead of Saturday's ultimatum, many of them stripped of their possessions as they fled for safety. They formed the remnants of a community which once numbered in the tens of thousands and traced its presence in Mosul to the earliest years of Christianity. People of other faiths in the once diverse city, including Shi'ites, Yazidis and Shabaks, have also fled from the ultra-conservative militants, who have blown up mosques and shrines and seized property of fleeing minorities.

"The heinous crime of the Islamic State was carried out not just against Christians, but against humanity," Sako told a special church service in east Baghdad where around 200 Muslims joined Christians in solidarity. "How in the 21st century could people be forced from their houses just because they are Christian, or Shi'ite or Sunni or Yazidi?" he asked. "Christian families have been expelled from their houses and their valuables were stolen and ...their houses and property expropriated in the name of the Islamic State." "This has never happened in Christian or Islamic history. Even Genghis Khan or Hulagu didn't do this," he said. Hulagu Khan led a Mongol army which sacked Baghdad in 1258, killing tens of thousand of people, destroying a caliphate which lasted nearly 600 years and leaving the city in ruins for centuries.

"WORLD MUST ACT"

Muslims at the service held up leaflets declaring "I am Iraqi, I am Christian", some writing it on their shirts. Others marked themselves with an "N", the first letter of the Arabic word for Christian, "Nasrani" or Nazarene. The Islamic State has been putting an "N" on Christian property marked out for seizure. One of Zako's deputies, Bishop Shlemon Wardooni, called for an international response. "The world must act, speak out, consider human rights," he said, adding that the Iraqi state was weak and divided and Muslim leaders had remained silent.

"We haven't heard from clerics from all sects or from the government," he told Reuters on Sunday. "The Christians are sacrificed for Iraq." Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned the treatment of the Christians and what he described as attacks on churches in Mosul, saying it showed "the extreme criminality and terrorist nature of this group". He said he instructed a government committee set up to support displaced people across Iraq to help the Christians who had been made homeless, but did not say when the army might try to win back control of Mosul. Iraq's security forces, which wilted under the weight of last month's Islamic State-led offensive, have been reinforced by Shi'ite militia fighters and are trying to push back the Sunni militants further south. So far they have failed to take back significant territory from the insurgents.

Pope Francis said he was troubled by the Islamic State ultimatum in his weekly public prayers on Sunday. The Chaldeans are Eastern Rite Catholics in communion with Rome. "I learned with great concern the news that came from the Christian communities in Mosul and other parts of the Middle East, where they have lived since the birth of Christianity and where they have made significant contributions to the good of their societies," he said  "Today they are persecuted. Our brothers are persecuted. They've been driven away. They must leave their homes without being able to take anything with them."

REFUGEES ROBBED

U.N. Secretary General Ban condemned "in the strongest terms the systematic persecution of minority populations in Iraq by Islamic State (IS) and associated armed groups," a statement by his spokesman said. Any systematic attack on a civilian population because of their ethnic background, religious beliefs or faith may constitute a crime against humanity, for which those responsible must be held accountable, he said. More than 2 million people have already been displaced in Iraq and the local U.N. mission said another 400 uprooted families arrived on Sunday morning in two cities in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish enclave. Another 700 families were expected in Arbil, barely 50 miles (80 km) from Mosul, it said. One Christian who left Mosul last week described how he fled with his family when he learned of the Islamic State deadline. "We gathered all our belongings and headed for the only exit. There was a checkpoint on the road and they were stopping cars there," 35-year-old Salwan Noel Miskouni said.

When the militants saw they were Christians, they demanded gold and money. The family initially said they had none, one of the fighters took their four-year-old son by the hand and threatened to abduct him. "My sister emptied her entire handbag with our money and gold and her ID. They let the car pass and the child go," Miskouni said. A few Christian families had stayed on, he said, hiding with Muslim neighbours who gave them shelter. But for now, he saw no possibility of returning with his family. "If (the Islamic State) leaves we will probably go back but if they stay it’s impossible - because they will slaughter us."

Pope Francis: Communists ‘stole’ the flag of Christianity

 Published time: June 30, 2014 00:51

Pope Francis, whose criticisms of unbridled capitalism have caused many to brand him a Marxist, said in an interview published Sunday that communists “stole” Christian ideals.

The 77-year-old pontiff was asked during his interview with local Il Messaggero newspaper about a blog in the Economist magazine by a journalist who said the Pope sounded a lot like a Leninist because he often criticized capitalism and called for reform of the global economic system.

“I can only say that the communists have stolen our flag. The flag of the poor is Christian. Poverty is at the center of the Gospel,” said the Pope. He was referring to passages in the Bible which state the need to help the poor.  Pope Francis has often called for people to share their wealth with the poor. “Communists say that all this is communism. Sure, twenty centuries later. So when they speak, one can say to them: ‘but then you are Christian,'” he said laughing.  The Pope also said that global politics is mired in corruption and bribery, adding that there is a deficiency in social work in society.  In regards to religious doctrine, the Pope said that the gospel cannot be understood without understanding poverty, and to be poor before God means poverty of the spirit.  Earlier this month, Pope Francis said that wealth from financial speculation and speculation on commodities was scandalous and compromised the poor’s access to food.
 

Pope emphasizes: ‘you cannot love God outside of the Church’

Catholic World News - June 25, 2014

Pope Francis continued his series of Wednesday general audiences on the Church and emphasized that belonging to the Church is essential to being a Christian. “We are Christians because we belong to the Church," Pope Francis said. “It’s like a last name: if the first name is ‘I am a Christian,’ the last name is ‘I belong to the Church.’”

“No one becomes a Christian by himself,” the Pope continued, as he explained that Christians receive their faith in baptism and through catechesis. He asked those assembled in St. Peter’s Square to recall the faces of parents, grandparents, priests, nuns, and others who taught them the sign of the cross, prayers, and the content of the faith. “I always remember the face of the nun who taught me catechism,” he said, as he called the Church “a large family.” “There are those who believe you can have a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside of the communion and the mediation of the Church,” he continued. “These are dangerous and harmful temptations.”

The Pope concluded by asking the Virgin Mary to pray “the grace never to fall into the temptation” of thinking that we do not need the Church. “On the contrary, you cannot love God without loving the brothers, you cannot love God outside of the Church; you cannot be in communion with God without being in the Church.”

Pope Francis says Italian Mafia members are 'excommunicated'

The Pope comforted the imprisoned father of a 3-year-old boy killed in the region's drug war and denounced Mafiosi for their 'adoration of evil' during a one-day pilgrimage to Calabria, the mob power base in southern Italy.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Saturday, June 21, 2014, 5:56 PM

ASSANO ALL’JONIO, Italy — Pope Francis journeyed Saturday to the heart of Italy’s biggest crime syndicate, met the father of a 3-year-old boy slain in the region’s drug war, and declared that all mobsters are automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

During his one-day pilgrimage to the southern region of Calabria, Francis comforted the imprisoned father of Nicola Campolongo in the courtyard of a prison in the town of Castrovillari. In January the boy was shot, along with one of his grandfathers and the grandfather’s girlfriend, in an attack blamed on drug turf wars in the nearby town of Cassano all’Jonio. The attackers torched the car with all three victims inside. The boy’s father and mother already were in jail at the time on drug trafficking charges. The pope had expressed his horror following the attack and promised to visit the town. Francis embraced the man. He asked the pope to pray for the boy’s mother, who was permitted to leave prison following her son’s slaying and remains under house arrest. The pope also met two of the boy’s grandmothers.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said Francis told the father: “May children never again have to suffer in this way.” “The two grandmothers were weeping like fountains,” Benedettini added. Calabria is the power base of the ‘ndrangheta, a global drug trafficking syndicate that enriches itself by extorting businesses and infiltrating public works contracts in underdeveloped Calabria. During his homily at an outdoor Mass, Francis denounced the ‘ndrangheta for what he called its ‘’adoration of evil and contempt for the common good. ‘’ ‘’Those who go down the evil path, as the Mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated,” he warned. Francis greeted about 200 other prisoners during his visit there. When Francis visited a hospice, a doctor there removed a bothersome wooden splinter from one of the pope’s fingers at his request, organizers said.
 

Peace Breaks Out In Israel Moments After  Olive Tree Planted

June 9, 2014

VATICAN–Just moments after Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas helped Pope Francis plant an Olive Tree in the Vatican Garden yesterday, the Jewish news outlet The Fiddler reported that peace had broken out in Israel.

Upon hearing the news, Pope Francis told Israeli and Palestinian leaders “I told you so. I told you so. Didn’t I tell you this was a magic tree?”

Surrounded by Palestinians and Israelis holding hands and giving each other piggyback rides, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Skyped Pope Francis to inform him that everything had been a misunderstanding, and all was now settled.

“The Palestinians are wonderful people!” Netanyahu told Pope Francis as he signed an executive order to open all checkpoints in the country, allowing free access for Palestinians to move around. “As of today we will have two states. Israel and Palestine will from here on, live happily side by side.”

The recorded Skype video shows jubilant Hamas leaders hoisting Netanyahu on to their shoulders as they chanted, “Peace! Peace! Peace!”

But less than one day after receiving news that every single Middle East conflict had been resolved, the magic Olive Tree that Francis, Peres, and Abbas had shoddily planted into the ground toppled over with a gust of wind, instantaneously causing a chain reaction of violent outbreaks all across the Middle East.

Speaking to reporters from the Vatican Gardens, Francis said that he was saddened to hear of the news, going on to tell the press that he had received another Skype from Netanyahu showing the Israeli Prime Minister in a fist fight with Hamas leaders.

Both sides are now blaming the other over whose shoddy work caused the fall of the tree.
 

Sudan court frees Christian woman from death row

(Reuters) - A 27-year-old woman who was sentenced to death in Sudan last month for converting to Christianity from Islam was freed on Monday after what the government said was "unprecedented" international pressure.

Mariam Yahya Ibrahim, who is married to a Christian American, was ordered by a Sudanese court last month to return to Islam and was sentenced to 100 lashes and to death.

Her release is likely to be welcomed by human rights groups and Western governments who voiced outrage at the ruling. Britain had last month summoned the Sudanese charge d'affaires to protest against the sentencing.

"The appeal court ordered the release of Mariam Yahya and the cancellation of the (previous) court ruling," Sudan’s SUNA news agency said. A government official had told Reuters on May 31 that Sudanese officials were working to release Ibrahim. Ibrahim was sent to a secret location for her protection, her lawyer said. "Her family had been threatened before and we are worried that someone might try to harm her," the lawyer, Mohaned Mostafa, told Reuters. Ibrahim gave birth in prison to a daughter, her second child by her husband Daniel Wani, whom she married in 2011. Sudan's Foreign Ministry said it had come under "unprecedented" international pressure to free Ibrahim.

"Now that the independent Sudanese judiciary has said its word in the case of a single national, the Foreign Ministry would like to remind the international community about the continued suffering of 35 million nationals as a result of sanctions," its statement said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the decision to release Ibrahim. "Her case has rightly drawn the attention of the world and has been of deep concern to the United States government and many of our citizens and their representatives in Congress," Kerry said in a statement released by the State Department. "From this step, we would hope that the government of Sudan could take further strides toward a different and more hopeful future for the people of Sudan," Kerry added The United States imposed sanctions on Sudan in 1997 over alleged human rights violations and support for what it called "international terrorism", then strengthened the penalties in 2006 over Khartoum's festering conflict with rebels in Darfur.

(Reporting by Maaz Alnugomi in Khartoum; Additional reporting by Will Dunham in Washington; Writing by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Alison Williams and Mohammad Zargham)
 

Google praised for dropping porn ads

Mountain View, Calif., Jun 16, 2014 / 07:12 am (EWTN News)
The head of a marriage and family group has lauded reports that Google is alerting advertisers that it is cutting pornography from its advertising policy.

“Pornography is turning out to be one of the biggest causes of divorce, if you talk to divorce lawyers or marriage counselors,” Dr. Janet Morse, president of the marriage defense group the Ruth Institute, told EWTN News.  “So I applaud Google for taking this off their site. I think that’s a pro-social act on their part, and it’s a lot better than government censorship.”

Morality in Media reported June 6 that an e-mail from Google to advertisers informed them of the policy change. Google listed “graphic depictions of sexual acts” as among the things that it would no longer tolerate and stated that it would “disapprove all ads and sites that are identified as being in violation of our revised policy.” Morality in Media added that “it seems Google will also no longer link to sites that contain such materials.”  Dr. Morse said the decision benefits society as a whole, because pornography is “anti-social” by nature.

“Pornography use has become an anti-social issue, because it’s a form of anti-social behavior when you think about the fact that human sexuality is designed to draw men and women together for the good of the species and for the good of society,” she explained. “Pornography turns that whole intrinsically pro-social desire into something that’s completely private and personal and isolated,” she continued, adding that it is preventing men “from being in real relationships with real people.”
 
 

50 000 Charismatics prays over the Pope
 

Pope Francis' Comments and Address at Charismatic Renewal Convention

"You are dispensers of the grace of God, not controllers! Dont be a customs office to the Holy Spirit!"
 

Vatican City,  June 03, 2014  (Zenit.org)

At 5 o’clock today June 1, the Holy Father went to Rome’s Olympic Stadium to meet with the participants in the 37thNational Convention of Renewal in the Holy Spirit (Rome, June 1-2, 2014). The event was organized by Renewal in the Spirit in collaboration with ICCRS (International Charismatic Catholic Renewal Services) and CFCCCF (Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowship).

Several testimonies were presented to the Pope in the course of the meeting, which he commented on individually, before his address to those present.

Following is a translation of Pope Francis’ words in response to the different testimonies and his final address.

* * *

WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER

To Priests:

To you priests, I wish to say one word: closeness -- closeness to Jesus Christ in prayer and adoration. Closeness to the Lord and closeness to the people, to the people of God entrusted to you. Love your people, be close to the people. This is what I ask of you, this twofold closeness: closeness to Jesus and closeness to the people.

To Young People:

It would be sad if a young person kept his youth in a strongbox: such youth becomes old in the worse sense of the word. It turns into a wreck, is good for nothing. Youth is to be risked: to risk it well, to risk it with hope. It is to wager on great things. Youth is to be given, so that others will know the Lord. Do not save your youth for yourselves: go forward!

To Families:

Families are the domestic Church, where Jesus grows, grows in the love of spouses; grows in the life of the children. It is because of this that the Enemy so attacks the family: the devil does not want it! And he seeks to destroy it; he acts so that love will not exist there. Families are this domestic Church. Spouses are sinners, as everyone is, but they wish to go forward in the faith, in their fruitfulness, in the children and in the faith of the children. May the Lord bless the family, may he make it strong in this crisis in which the devil wants to destroy it.

To the Disabled:

Brothers and sisters who suffer, who have an illness, who are disabled, are brothers and sisters anointed by the suffering of Jesus Christ; they imitate Jesus in the difficult moment of their cross, of their life. This anointing of their suffering they carry forward for the whole Church. Thank you so much, brothers and sisters; thank you so much for you acceptance and for being anointed by suffering. Thank you so much for the hope that you witness, that hope that leads us forward seeking Jesus’ caress.

To the Elderly:

I said to Salvatore that perhaps someone is missing, perhaps the most important: grandparents are missing! The elderly are missing, and they, the “old,” are the assurance of our faith. Look, when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple there were two elderly there; and four if not five times – I do not remember well – the Gospel says that they “were led by the Holy Spirit.” Instead, of Mary and Joseph it says that they were led by the Law. Young people must comply with the Law; the elderly – as good wine – have the freedom of the Holy Spirit. And so this Simeon, who was courageous, invented a “liturgy,” and praised God, he praised … and it was the Spirit that pushed him to do this. The elderly! They are our wisdom, they are the wisdom of the Church; the elderly whom we so often discard, the grandparents, the elderly … And that little grandmother, Anna, did an extraordinary thing in the Church: she canonized gossip! And how did she do it? In this way: because instead of gossiping against someone, she went from one place to the other saying [of Jesus]: “It is he; he it is who will save us!” And this is a good thing. Grandmothers and grandfathers are our strength and our wisdom. May the Lord always give us wise elderly people!  -- elderly who give us the memory of our people, the memory of the Church. And may they give us also what the Letter to the Hebrews says of them: the sense of joy. It says that the elderly greeted the promises from afar: may they teach us this.

Prayer of the Pope:

Lord, take care of your people in expectation of the Holy Spirit. Take care of young people, take care of families, take care of children, take care of the sick, take care of priests, consecrated men and women, take care of us Bishops, take care of all. And grant us that holy intoxication, that of the Spirit, that which makes us speak all languages, the languages of charity, always close to brothers and sisters who need us. Teach us not to fight among ourselves to have an extra bit of power; teach us to be humble; teach us to love the Church more than our party, than our internal “quarrels”; teach us to have an open heart to receive the Spirit. Send your Spirit, o Lord, upon us! Amen

***

THE HOLY FATHER’S ADDRESS

Dear brothers and sisters!

I thank you so much for your welcome. No doubt someone told the organizers that I very much like this song, “The Lord Jesus Lives” … When I celebrated holy Mass in Buenos Aires with the Charismatic Renewal, after the consecration and after a few seconds of adoration in tongues, we sang this song with so much joy and force, as you did today. Thank you! I felt at home!

I thank Renewal in the Spirit, the ICCRS and the Catholic Fraternity for this meeting with you, which gives me so much joy. I am grateful also for the presence of the first who had an intense experience of the power of the Holy Spirit; I believe that it was Patty, here … You, Charismatic Renewal, have received a great gift from the Lord. You were born of the will of the Spirit as “a current of grace in the Church and for the Church.” This is your definition: a current of grace.

What is the first gift of the Holy Spirit? The gift of Himself, who is love and makes you enamored of Jesus. And this love changes life. Because of this it is said: “to be born again to life in the Spirit.” Jesus said it to Nicodemus. You have received the great gift of the diversity of charisms, diversity that leads to the harmony of the Holy Spirit, to the service of the Church.

When I think of you Charismatics, the image of the Church herself comes to me, but in a particular way: I think of a great orchestra, where every instrument is different from another and the voices are also different, but all are necessary for the harmony of the music.  Saint Paul says it in chapter XII of the First Letter to the Corinthians. Therefore, as in an orchestra, no one in the Renewal can think of being more important or greater than another, please! No one can say: “I’m the head.” You, as the whole Church, have only one head, only one Lord: the Lord Jesus. Repeat with me: who is the head of the Renewal? The Lord Jesus! Who is the head of the Renewal? [those present]: the Lord Jesus! And we can say this with the strength that the Holy Spirit has given us, because no one can say “Jesus is the Lord” without the Holy Spirit.

As you perhaps know – because news spreads – in the first years of the Charismatic Renewal I did not like Charismatics much. And I said of them: “They seem like a school of samba!” I did not share their way of praying and the many new things that were happening in the Church. Afterwards, I began to know them and in the end I understood the good that Charismatic Renewal does to the Church. And this story, which goes from the “school of samba” forward, ends in a particular way: a few months before taking part in the Conclave, I was appointed by the Episcopal Conference spiritual assistant of Charismatic Renewal in Argentina.

Charismatic Renewal is a great force at the service of the proclamation of the Gospel, in the joy of the Holy Spirit. You received the Holy Spirit that made you discover the love of God for all his children and love of the Word. In the early times it was said that you Charismatics always carried the Bible with you, the New Testament … Do you still do it today? [the crowd]: Yes?! I’m not so sure. If not, return to this first love; always carry in your pocket, in your bag the Word of God! And read a little piece -- always with the Word of God.

You, people of God, people of the Charismatic Renewal, be careful not to lose the freedom that the Holy Spirit has given you. The danger for the Renewal, as our dear Father Raniero Cantalamessa often says, is that of excessive organization: the danger of excessive organization.

Yes, you need organization, but do not lose the grace of letting God be God! “However, there is no greater freedom than that of letting oneself be carried by the Spirit, refusing to calculate and to control everything, and allow Him to illuminate you, lead you, guide you, and push you where He wishes. He knows well what the need is in every age and moment. This calls to be mysteriously fruitful!” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 280).

Another danger is that of becoming “controllers” of God’s grace. So often the leaders (I prefer the name “servants”) of some group or some community become, perhaps without wanting it, administrators of grace, deciding who can receive the prayer of the effusion or Baptism in the Spirit and who, instead, cannot. If some do so, I beg you not to do so anymore, don’t do it anymore” You are dispensers of the grace of God, not controllers! Don’t be a customs office to the Holy Spirit!

You have a guide in the Documents of Malines, a sure course not to mistake the way. The first document is: Theological and Pastoral Guideline. The second is: Charismatic Renewal and Ecumenism, written by Cardinal Suenens himself, great protagonist of Vatican Council II. The third is: Charismatic Renewal and Service to Man, written by Cardinal Suenens and Bishop Helder Camara.

This is your task: evangelization, spiritual ecumenism, care of the poor and needy and hospitality for the marginalized. And all this on the basis of adoration! The foundation of the renewal is to adore God!

I have been asked to tell the Renewal what the Pope expects from you.

The first thing is conversion to the love of Jesus, which changes life and makes of the Christian a witness of the Love of God. The Church expects this witness of Christian life and the Holy Spirit helps us to live the coherence of the Gospel for our holiness.

I expect from you that you share with all, in the Church, the grace of Baptism in the Holy Spirit (expression that is read in the Acts of the Apostles).

I expect from you an evangelization with the Word of God which proclaims that Jesus is alive and loves all men.

I expect that you give witness of spiritual ecumenism with all those brothers and sisters of other Churches and Christian communities who believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

That you remain united in the love that the Lord Jesus asks of us for all men, and in the prayer to the Holy Spirit to come to this unity, necessary for evangelization in the name of Jesus. Remember that “the Charismatic Renewal is by its very nature ecumenical … Catholic Renewal rejoices over what the Holy Spirit carries out in the other Churches” (1 Malines 5, 3).

Be close to the poor, the needy, to touch in their flesh the flesh of Jesus. Be close, please!

Seek unity in the Renewal, because unity comes from the Holy Spirit and is born of the unity of the Trinity. From whom does division come? From the devil! Divison comes from the devil. Flee from internal fights, please! They must not exist among us!

I want to thank the ICCRS and the Catholic Fraternity, the two organizations of Pontifical Right of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, at the service of global Renewal; be committed to preparing the world meeting for priests and Bishops, which will be held in June of next year. I know that you have also decided to share the office and to work together as a sign of unity and to manage the resources better. I rejoice greatly. I also want to thank you because you are already organizing the Great Jubilee of 2017.

Brothers and sisters, remember: adore the Lord God: this is the foundation! To adore God. Seek sanctity in the new life of the Holy Spirit. Be dispensers of the grace of God. Avoid the danger of excessive organization.

Go out into the streets to evangelize, proclaiming the Gospel. Remember that the Church was born “in going forth” that Pentecost morning. Be close to the poor and touch in their flesh the wounded flesh of Jesus. Let yourselves by led by the Holy Spirit, with that freedom and, please, do not cage the Holy Spirit! With liberty!

Seek the unity of the Renewal, unity that comes from the Trinity!

And I await you all, Charismatics of the world, to celebrate, together with the Pope, your Great Jubilee in Pentecost of 2017, in Saint Peter’s Square! Thank you!

Ratzinger the African

Expansion of the nunciatures. Increase of cardinals. Larger number of positions in the curia. Benedict XVI is betting on Africa. Because, he says, it is the continent with the most lively faith

VATICAN CITY, December 11, 2012 – "Africa is currently the most dynamic continent from the point of view of the expansion of the Church and of Christianity in general, and where vocations are the most numerous in terms of percentage.”

This was recalled in a recent article in “La Civiltà Cattolica" focusing on a conference dedicated to “Paul VI and Africa” at which a number of speakers emphasized “the great attention” that that pope has dedicated to the continent, “prophetically intuiting also its openness to the evangelical message.”  The article emphasizes how Benedict XVI also “has referred to Africa as to the ' lung'  of the Church.” And in effect, the pontificate of Joseph Ratzinger is showing itself year by year to be ever more attentive to what is happening on the black continent.

The attention of Benedict XVI to Africa is highly evident from the diplomatic point of view, just for starters. In the course of the current pontificate, the network of nunciatures in Africa has been developed further. With Benedict XVI, in fact, two new nunciature headquarters have been opened in Burkina Faso and Liberia. Not only that. Vatican officials have been sent on a permanent resident basis to Chad, Gabon, and Malawi. But African countries have also demonstrated a growing interest in having closer relations with the Holy See.

In 2008, in fact, Botswana also established full diplomatic relations with the Holy See. In this way, today, only three African countries, all of them with an overwhelming Islamic majority, do not yet have an exchange of representation with the Vatican. They are the Comoros islands, Mauritania, and tormented Somalia. With pope Ratzinger, moreover, while Ireland has downgraded its historic diplomatic representation from resident to non-resident, five countries have gone in the opposite direction, establishing the residence of their ambassador in Rome. Three of these are African: Cameroon, Benin, and, as of this year, Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent.

To this must be added the increase of diplomatic accords between the Holy See and African countries. Before the current pontificate, the Vatican had stipulated a “modus vivendi" with Tunisia in 1964, then there was an exchange of letters between the king of Morocco and John Paul II in 1983 -84, then two accords with Cameroon concerning the Institut Catholique of Yaoundé and a couple of partial conventions with Ivory Coast. The only accord-framework, of broader impact, was the one with Gabon in 1997. With Benedict XVI, three accord-frameworks have already been stipulated: with Mozambique in 2011, with Equatorial Guinea and Burundi this year. But the current pope's special attention to Africa does not demonstrate itself exclusively or primarily in the diplomatic arena.

Let's look at the voyages. The pope theologian has gone there two times so far, in spite of his advanced age. John Paul II made his last African voyage, to Nigeria, in 1998, when he was 78 years old. Benedict XVI went to Cameroon and Angola in 2009, at the age of 82, and in 2011 to Benin, when he was 84. Let's move on to the creation of cardinals. With Ratzinger as pope, among the 74 new cardinal electors he has created, 7 are African, 9.5percent. This is the highest percentage ever. John Paul II made 16 out of 210 (7.6 percent), Paul VI 12 out of 143 (8.4 percent).

In the appointments to the Roman curia as well, Benedict XVI has an eye of special regard for the African continent. He has called the Ghanaian cardinal Peter Turkson to head the pontifical council for justice and peace and has promoted the Guinean Robert Sarah to president of the council "Cor Unum," bestowing on him the scarlet. Pope Ratzinger has also called the Tanzanian archbishop Novatus Rugambwa to fill the position of adjunct secretary of "Propaganda Fide," while he has chosen the Beninois Barthélemy Adoukonou as secretary of the council for culture, elevating him to the episcopate, and Monsignor Jean-Marie Mate Musivi Mupendawatu, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as the new secretary of the council for the pastoral care of health care workers. With Benedict XVI, for the first time an African has become the master of pontifical ceremonies: he is Jean-Pierre Kwambemba Masi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

And for the first time, a son of the black continent will has been given the delicate position of head of protocol of the secretariat of state. He is Monsignor Fortunatus Nwachukwu, a Nigerian, who recently, after five years of service, has been promoted as archbishop and nuncio in Nicaragua, becoming the fourth African pontifical representative appointed during this pontificate. The others are Leon Kalenga, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Nigerian Jude Thaddeus Okolo, and the Tanzanian Rugambwa (who afterward, as stated, was called to the curia).

This too is a little Ratzingerian record. Until 2005, in fact, the first and only African nuncio was the Ugandan Augustine Kasujja, appointed by John Paul II in 1998. But what is the root of this African predilection of pope Ratzinger? The pontiff himself explained this in the opening homily for the African synod of 2009: “Africa represents an immense spiritual 'lung' for a humanity that appears to be in a crisis of faith and hope.” Benedict XVI further explored this intuition of his in speaking to journalists during his voyage to Benin in 2011:

"The freshness of Africa’s yes to life and the youthfulness that is found there, so full of enthusiasm and hope as well as humour and liveliness, show us that Africa has a reserve of humanity, there is still a freshness about its religious sense and its hope. [...] So I would say that the fresh humanism found in Africa’s young soul, despite all the problems of today and tomorrow, shows that Africa still has a reserve of life and vitality for the future, on which we can depend."

Two years earlier, on December 21, 2009, assessing his voyage to Cameroon and Angola, Benedict XVI also positively evaluated the style with which the liturgy is celebrated in Africa:

"The memory of the liturgical celebrations is impressed upon my memory in a particularly profound way. The celebrations of the holy Eucharist were true feasts of faith. I would like to mention two elements that seem particularly important to me. First of all, there was a great shared joy, which was even expressed through the body, but in a disciplined way oriented by the presence of the living God. With this the second element is already indicated: the sense of the sacred, of the presence of the mystery of the living God. [...] Yes, this awareness was there: we are in the presence of God. This does not lead to fear or inhibition, nor to an external obedience, and far less to self-display before one another or an undisciplined shouting. There was instead what the fathers called 'sobria ebrietas': being filled with a joy that nonetheless remains sober and orderly, that unites people starting from the inside, leading them to the communal praise of God, a praise that at the same time stirs up love of neighbor, and mutual responsibility."
*
Pope Benedict certainly does not ignore the limitations and difficulties of the African Church, which became glaring, for example, with the resignation he imposed on the central African bishops of Bangui and Bossango in 2009 over moral problems, and that of Koudougou in Burkina Faso in 2011 because of managerial incompetence, or with the "relieving" of authority of the bishop of Point-Noire in Congo, also in 2011.

But this does not prevent the white-haired "white Father" from continuing to wager on the black continent for the future of the Church.

MSFS: chart new road map for innovation at all levels

Published Date: February 20, 2013

Chapter gives new thrust on Good Governance.

The 19th General Chapter of the Missionaries of St. Francis De Sales (MSFS) came to its close on 15th Feb 2013. With the clarion call of the Founder, the servant of God, Fr. Peter Mary Mermier, “I want missions”, the Capitulants prayerfully engaged themselves in the unfolding of the theme of the General Chapter: “ MSFS- Mystics of God’s love for prophetic ministries today”.

Thirty eight Capitulants, hailing from South America, North America, Europe, Australia, Africa and Asia participated in the two-week long Chapter, which has gifted to the Congregation not only a new team of general administration but also certain orientations, directives and an action plan for carrying out the mission of Christ with innovation and fresh enthusiasm.

The General Chapter of Missionaries of St. Francis De Sales elected Very Rev. Fr. Abraham Vettuvelil MSFS as Superior General for the first term of six years. It acknowledged the unique contribution of Very Rev. Fr. Agnelo Fernandes MSFS, the former Superior General to the entire Congregation through his dynamic spiritual leadership for the last twelve years.

The Chapter also elected the following confreres to assist the Superior General in the governance of the Congregation: Very Rev. Fr. Thumma Mariadas Reddy (Assistant Superior General), Very Rev. Fr. Noel Rebello (General Secretary for Formation), Very Rev. Fr. George Parampukattil (General Secretary for Education), Very Rev. Fr. Jose Kumblolickal (General Secretary for Social apostolates and Innovative Ministries), Very Rev. Fr. Jayaseelan(the General Secretary for Mission), and Very Rev. Fr. Augustine Mangat ( General Bursar).

The Chapter has given a new thrust on Good Governance at all levels and has adopted plans for its implementation. While inviting the members to a joyful fidelity to living the basics of religious life, the Chapter has also placed a new emphasis on networking and collaboration, sharing of personnel, and pooling of material resources for the promotion of a better visibility to the charismatic expressions of the foundational apostolates: Renewal of Christian life, Pioneering evangelization and Formation of the young.

With the openness to the Spirit of God, the Capitulants disposed themselves to taking bold steps for guiding the members of the Congregation “to think Congregationally”; and respond generously and joyfully to the needs of people and communities. Thus the Chapter has given a new road map for bringing innovation in spiritual leadership, mission, life style, community living, and in carrying out the various apostolates.

The Missionaries of St. Francis De Sales was founded at Annecy in France by the Servant of God Fr. Peter Mary Mermier. Today the Congregation is spread out to 26 countries of the world. The six Provinces in India with over 850 priests and 250 professed members in various stages of formation form the youthful part of the Congregation. This year, the MSFS Congregation is celebrating the 175th anniversary of its foundation.

Source: Fr. Francis Thadathil MSFS
 

A statue of the Virgin Mary is all what is left of the 80 houses burned by Sandy in Queens,

There is an image of Mother Mary under the advocation of "miraculous Mary"
 

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 30: A Virgin Mary is all that remains from a home which was destroyed during Hurricane Sandy in Breezy Point, Queens on October 30, 2012 in New York, United States. Over 50 homes wer destroyed in a late night and fast moving fire. At least 15 people were reported killed in the United States by Sandy as millions of people in the eastern United States have awoken to widespread power outages, flooded homes and downed trees. New York City was hit especially hard with wide spread power outages and significant flooding in parts of the city. (Spencer Platt, Getty Images)

Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Matt Long poked around the sooty ground in front of the charred remains of his home of 15 years.
Nothing inside survived the post-Hurricane Sandy fire that ravaged the beachfront hamlet of Breezy Point, New York. Long and his wife, Mary, were trying to salvage the only keepsakes they could: octagonal stones, each six inches across. One bore the handprint of 10-year-old Grace, the other was made by 8- year-old Emily.
The house on Gotham Walk and 110 others were destroyed by fire on that stretch of peninsula on the southwestern tip of New York City’s Queens borough, about 10 miles by air from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

“It’s awful,” said Long, 46, a former firefighter who was nearly killed when a bus making an illegal turn slammed into his bicycle in 2005. “There’s a lot of history in this place, and now it’s all gone.”
Mary, 38, stood on what used to be the family’s front stoop and wiped away tears. The neighborhood nicknamed the “Irish Riviera” was unrecognizable. In addition to the structures claimed by fire, many more of Breezy Point’s 2,834 houses were waterlogged, missing walls or listing on sunken foundations.
John Whelan, 49, stood at the edge of what had been a densely-built block of homes. A few brick chimneys survived and at least three statuettes of the Virgin Mary.
“These things made it,” Whelan said, pointing to one of the religious statues. “This is a very Catholic community.”

It reminds the case of last September 5, 2012 in Braithwaite, Louisiana when a  statue of the Virgin Mary stands in flood waters in Plaquemines Parish. Louisiana officials estimate that at least 13,000 homes were damaged by Hurricane Isaac

In the tsunami in Asia (Dec 2004) there also was many miraculous images and christians saved . Or you can see: The priests who survived the atomic bomb in Hiroshima in 1945
 

THE UNBORN CHILD - Italy’s conscientious doctors

Up to 85 percent of gynecologists in some regions refuse to perform abortions.

Jesi is a lovely Italian hill town not far from Ancona on the Adriatic coast in the center-north of the country. A few weeks ago the local hospital let it be known that they faced a doctor shortage of sorts. It seems that all of the town’s 10 gynecologists refuse to perform abortions. They are all conscientious objectors. The local office of the communist labor union spread the news because they claimed women’s rights were being denied, although Italy’s abortion legislation (Law 194/78) explicitly provides a right for doctors and other medical personnel to refuse to participate in the procedure.

Jesi’s top medical bureaucrats began a search for doctors elsewhere in the Marche region where the town is located. A doctor from nearby Fabriano, 40 kilometers away, agreed to be on call in case of need and to go to Jesi if an abortion seeker would not go to Fabriano. However, his services may or may not be much in demand.

While abortion doctors in the entire Marche region seem to be rare, abortions are not that many to begin with. Italian Ministry of Health data on abortions indicate that women from the Marche region had 2,458 abortions in 2009, but that nearly one-fourth had their procedure done outside their resident province and 10% outside the region.

Further north, in the town of Treviglio, near Bergamo in Lombardy, a similar problem has arisen: 24 out of 25 anesthesiologists in the four hospitals serving a population of around 350,000 refuse to be involved in abortions, and 24 out of 28 gynecologists-obstetricians are also conscientious objectors. Other medical facilities in the Bergamo province also report a high number of objectors but the supply is not as tight as in Treviglio. Nonetheless, press reports indicate that in the entire province of Bergamo, five percent of the 1,867 abortions performed in 2010 were on women from outside the area. It seems that there may be even more conscientious objectors elsewhere in Lombardy, Italy’s most prosperous region.

If such refusals are helping the downward trend of abortions in Italy, there are also incentives for women to keep their babies. The regional government of Lombardy has put in place a program to assist resident women who wanted an abortion for economic reasons but changed their minds. Progetto Nasko – or Project I am Born – grants a mother keeping her child 250 euros per month for 18 months after she obtains medical confirmation of her pregnancy and demonstrates evidence of economic hardship. The expectant mother receives a prepaid rechargeable card which is managed by one of several Centers for Aid to Life (Centri di aiuto alla vita).

The examples above are part of Italy’s experience since abortion was legalized in 1978. Not all countries compile data on abortions as detailed as that of Italy’s Ministry of Health, but the results coming out of Italy, as discussed in a previous MercatorNet article by this author, indicate that in 2010, the total number of abortions in Italy declined 2.7 percent to 115,372 and were 51 percent below the 1982 peak. At the same time, the number and share of conscientious objectors in the medical profession have steadily increased.

Evidently moral and ethical factors do play a role in people’s professional lives. Respect for life and human dignity should be a consideration falling under medical doctors’ oath to “first do no harm.” Ethical considerations are not always in harmony with economic perceptions, but every child brought to light in Italy helps advance the precariously low fertility rate, which has been inching up in recent years and reached 1.42 in 2011, up from 1.35 in 2006 and 1.25 ten years earlier.

The latest data (2007-2009) also show that the overwhelming majority of Italy’s gynecologists are conscientious objectors when it comes to abortion. A regional breakdown shows a range from a low of 52 percent in Emilia-Romagna (part of Italy’s so-called “red belt”, in political terms) to a high of 85 percent in Basilicata in the south. Indeed, objectors account for over three-quarters of their profession in 10 out of the 21 Italian regions. The national average has been as high as 71 percent. Jesi and Treviglio are just two local examples of good news on the life front coming out of Italy.

Vincenzina Santoro is an international economist. She represents the American Family Association of New York at the United Nations.
 

Pope opens Synod: The Church exists to evangelize
 2012-10-07 Vatican Radio
(Vatican Radio) – A host of cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and lay people drawn from throughout the Universal Church gathered around Pope Benedict XVI Sunday morning as he declared the Thirteenth Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelisation, officially open. Emer McCarthy reports :
Green was the liturgical colour and the concelebrating Synod fathers took their places at the foot of the altar before the façade of St Peter’s Basilica, as Pope Benedict XVI outlined his vision and hopes for the important task ahead of them in the next three weeks: helping people to rediscover faith in Jesus Christ.
In his homily, he said “in every time and place, evangelization always has as its starting and finishing points Jesus Christ, the Son of God (cf. Mk 1:1); and the Crucifix is the supremely distinctive sign of him who announces the Gospel: a sign of love and peace, a call to conversion and reconciliation”.
This call, he continued, should take into account “those who do not yet know Jesus Christ and his message of salvation, and those who, though baptized, have drifted away from the Church”. Then – reflecting on the Sunday Gospel, Mark Chapter 10 - Pope Benedict singled out one area for particular attention: Marriage.
Looking out at the tens of thousands gathered in St Peter’s Square he said that marriage “is a Gospel in itself” and “Good News” for today’s dechristianized world. “The union of a man and a woman, their becoming “one flesh” in charity, in fruitful and indissoluble love, is a sign that speaks of God with a force and an eloquence which in our days has become greater because unfortunately, for various reasons, marriage, in precisely the oldest regions evangelized, is going through a profound crisis”.
Benedict XVI pointed to a link between the current crisis of faith and this crisis in marriage, because marriage is based on the grace of God that man of today no longer recognizes. To overcome this crisis, any crisis, we need to be newly reconciled with God.

Above the altar from the central balcony of St Peter’s basilica hung two giant tapestries depicting St John of Avila and St Hildegard of Bingen. Reciting the solemn formula in Latin Pope Benedict XVI declared them both Doctors of the Universal Church. He then reminded the men and women gathered to the Vatican for the Synod that “the saints are the true actors and pioneers in evangelization” and invoking their intercession, Pope Benedict concluded by entrusting the Synod’s work to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New Evangelization.
Below the full text of Pope Benedict XVI’s Homily, Sunday October 7th, 2012:

With this solemn concelebration we open the thirteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the theme The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith. This theme reflects a programmatic direction for the life of the Church, its members, families, its communities and institutions. And this outline is reinforced by the fact that it coincides with the beginning of the Year of Faith, starting on 11 October, on the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. I give a cordial and grateful welcome to you who have come to be part of the Synodal Assembly, in particular to the Secretary-General of the Synod of Bishops, and to his colleagues. I salute the fraternal delegates of the other churches and ecclesial communities as well as all present, inviting them to accompany in daily prayer the deliberations which will take place over the next three weeks. The readings for this Sunday’s Liturgy of the Word propose to us two principal points of reflection: the first on matrimony, which I will touch shortly; and the second on Jesus Christ, which I will discuss now. We do not have time to comment upon the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews but, at the beginning of this Synodal Assembly, we ought to welcome the invitation to fix our gaze upon the Lord Jesus, “crowned with glory and honour, because of the suffering of death (2:9). The word of God places us before the glorious One who was crucified, so that our whole lives, and in particular the commitment of this Synodal session, will take place in the sight of him and in the light of his mystery. In every time and place, evangelization always has as its starting and finishing points Jesus Christ, the Son of God (cf. Mk 1:1); and the Crucifix is the supremely distinctive sign of him who announces the Gospel: a sign of love and peace, a call to conversion and reconciliation. My dear Brother Bishops, starting with ourselves, let us fix our gaze upon him and let us be purified by his grace.

I would now like briefly to examine the new evangelization, and its relation to ordinary evangelization and the mission ad Gentes. The Church exists to evangelize. Faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ’s command, his disciples went out to the whole world to announce the Good News, spreading Christian communities everywhere. With time, these became well-organized churches with many faithful. At various times in history, divine providence has given birth to a renewed dynamism in Church’s evangelizing activity. We need only think of the evangelization of the Anglo-Saxon peoples or the Slavs, or the transmission of the faith on the continent of America, or the missionary undertakings among the peoples of Africa, Asia and Oceania. It is against this dynamic background that I like to look at the two radiant figures that I have just proclaimed Doctors of the Church, Saint John of Avila and Saint Hildegard of Bingen. Even in our own times, the Holy Spirit has nurtured in the Church a new effort to announce the Good News, a pastoral and spiritual dynamism which found a more universal expression and its most authoritative impulse in the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Such renewed evangelical dynamism produces a beneficent influence on the two specific “branches” developed by it, that is, on the one hand the Missio ad Gentes or announcement of the Gospel to those who do not yet know Jesus Christ and his message of salvation, and on the other the New Evangelization, directed principally at those who, though baptized, have drifted away from the Church and live without reference to the Christian life. The Synodal Assembly which opens today is dedicated to this new evangelization, to help these people encounter the Lord, who alone who fills existence with deep meaning and peace; and to favour the rediscovery of the faith, that source of grace which brings joy and hope to personal, family and social life. Obviously, such a special focus must not diminish either missionary efforts in the strict sense or the ordinary activity of evangelization in our Christian communities, as these are three aspects of the one reality of evangelization which complement and enrich each other. The theme of marriage, found in the Gospel and the first reading, deserves special attention. The message of the word of God may be summed up in the expression found in the Book of Genesis and taken up by Jesus himself: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24; Mk 10:7-8). What does this word say to us today? It seems to me that it invites us to be more aware of a reality, already well known but not fully appreciated: that matrimony is a Gospel in itself, a Good News for the world of today, especially the dechristianized world. The union of a man and a woman, their becoming “one flesh” in charity, in fruitful and indissoluble love, is a sign that speaks of God with a force and an eloquence which in our days has become greater because unfortunately, for various reasons, marriage, in precisely the oldest regions evangelized, is going through a profound crisis. And it is not by chance. Marriage is linked to faith, but not in a general way. Marriage, as a union of faithful and indissoluble love, is based upon the grace that comes from the triune God, who in Christ loved us with a faithful love, even to the Cross. Today we ought to grasp the full truth of this statement, in contrast to the painful reality of many marriages which, unhappily, end badly. There is a clear link between the crisis in faith and the crisis in marriage. And, as the Church has said and witnessed for a long time now, marriage is called to be not only an object but a subject of the new evangelization. This is already being seen in the many experiences of communities and movements, but its realization is also growing in dioceses and parishes, as shown in the recent World Meeting of Families.

One of the important ideas of the renewed impulse that the Second Vatican Council gave to evangelization is that of the universal call to holiness, which in itself concerns all Christians (cf. Lumen Gentium, 39-42). The saints are the true actors in evangelization in all its expressions. In a special way they are even pioneers and bringers of the new evangelization: with their intercession and the example of lives attentive to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they show the beauty of the Gospel to those who are indifferent or even hostile, and they invite, as it were tepid believers, to live with the joy of faith, hope and charity, to rediscover the taste for the word of God and for the sacraments, especially for the bread of life, the Eucharist. Holy men and women bloom among the generous missionaries who announce the Good News to non-Christians, in the past in mission countries and now in any place where there are non-Christians. Holiness is not confined by cultural, social, political or religious barriers. Its language, that of love and truth, is understandable to all people of good will and it draws them to Jesus Christ, the inexhaustible source of new life. At this point, let us pause for a moment to appreciate the two saints who today have been added to the elect number of Doctors of the Church. Saint John of Avila lived in the sixteenth century. A profound expert on the sacred Scriptures, he was gifted with an ardent missionary spirit. He knew how to penetrate in a uniquely profound way the mysteries of the redemption worked by Christ for humanity. A man of God, he united constant prayer to apostolic action. He dedicated himself to preaching and to the more frequent practice of the sacraments, concentrating his commitment on improving the formation of candidates for the priesthood, of religious and of lay people, with a view to a fruitful reform of the Church.

Saint Hildegard of Bingen, an important female figure of the twelfth century, offered her precious contribution to the growth of the Church of her time, employing the gifts received from God and showing herself to be a woman of brilliant intelligence, deep sensitivity and recognized spiritual authority. The Lord granted her a prophetic spirit and fervent capacity to discern the signs of the times. Hildegard nurtured an evident love of creation, and was learned in medicine, poetry and music. Above all, she maintained a great and faithful love for Christ and the Church.This summary of the ideal in Christian life, expressed in the call to holiness, draws us to look with humility at the fragility, even sin, of many Christians, as individuals and communities, which is a great obstacle to evangelization and to recognizing the force of God that, in faith, meets human weakness. Thus, we cannot speak about the new evangelization without a sincere desire for conversion. The best path to the new evangelization is to let ourselves be reconciled with God and with each other (cf. 2 Cor 5:20). Solemnly purified, Christians can regain a legitimate pride in their dignity as children of God, created in his image and redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and they can experience his joy in order to share it with everyone, both near and far.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us entrust the work of the Synod meeting to God, sustained by the communion of saints, invoking in particular the intercession of great evangelizers, among whom, with much affection, we ought to number Blessed John Paul II, whose long pontificate was an example of the new evangelization. Let us place ourselves under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New Evangelization. With her let us invoke a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that from on high he may illumine the Synodal assembly and make it fruitful for the Church’s way ahead.

Africa: Christians outnumber Muslims

At a conference in Morocco, Italian sociologist, Massimo Introvigne, revealed that African practicing Catholics outnumber their European counterparts
A. TOR Vatican City

The latest figures reveal that Christianity has become the African continent’s number one religion, clearly surpassing Islam. This is according to the findings of a study presented today during the course of a conference organised by CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) at El Jadida University in Morocco. The figures revealed at the conference which was attended by seventy speakers from 18 countries, today, Christians account for 46, 53% of the African population compared to the 40, 46 % represented by Muslims and the 11, 8% represented by traditional African religions.

The study states that among African countries, 31 have Christian majorities, 21 have Muslim majorities and 6 have populations which adhere mostly to traditional African religions. In 1900 Christians in Africa totalled ten million; in 2012 this number reached five hundred million. In 1900 only 2% of Christians in the world were African; today, this figure has risen to 20%. In ten years time they will be the largest continental bloc within Christianity, outdoing Europe and the Americas. “This data is still not widely known - stated sociologist Massimo Introvigne, CESNUR’s founder – but they have a profound historical, cultural and political significance. There are now more practicing Christians in Africa than in Europe. In the long run, this will not only change Africa but Christianity as well as John Paul II had intuited. His attention to Africa was continued by Benedict XVI who has already visited the continent twice.”

“Of course, not everyone is happy about this development,” Introvigne added. The sociologist claims that this growth in the number of Christians across the African continent could be one of the causes of certain attacks. “Some Islamic ultra-fundamentalists consider it scandalous that there are more Christians than Muslims in Africa and proceed to persecute and kill Christians in countries such as Nigeria, Mali, Somalia and Kenya. The way the ultra-fundamentalists see it, today, the battle which will determine whether the world will be Muslim or Christian is being fought in Africa. And that Islam is losing. This is why they are responding with bombs.”

Speaking at the Rimini Meeting last August, Ignatius Kaigama, the Archbishop of Jos, in Nigeria, had said: “Most Muslims and Christians in Northern Nigeria would like to live in peace and be good neighbours, despite all the tensions that exist. Mixed Muslim and Christian families can be found in both Southern and Northern Nigeria. But it is no secret that some Muslim leaders would like to “immerse the Loran in the Atlantic sea”: they believe Islam should be the country’s dominant religion, as was demonstrated with the introduction of Sharia law in some parts of the North. Nothing can be said against what can be defined as a legitimate aspiration: every religion would like to expand and boost the number of its followers. But this must be done in a peaceful and civil manner, through testimony.”
 

Christians should leave their beliefs at home, say lawyers

The European Court of Human Rights is hearing a test-case appeal from Christians who want the right to wear a cross at work.
Posted on September 5, 2012, 3:49 PM•

Christians should leave their religious beliefs at home or accept that a personal expression of faith at work, such as wearing a cross, means they might have to resign and get another job, government lawyers have said.

Landmark cases, brought by four British Christians, including two workers forced out of their jobs after visibly wearing crosses, have been heard today at the European Court of Human Rights

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has previously pledged to change the law to protect religious expression at work but official legal submissions on Tuesday to Strasbourg human rights judges made a clear “difference between the professional and private sphere”.

James Eadie QC, acting for the government, told the European court that the refusal to allow an NHS nurse and a British Airways worker to visibly wear a crucifix at work “did not prevent either of them practicing religion in private”, which would be protected by human rights law.

He argued that that a Christian, or any other religious believer, “under difficulty” is not discriminated against if the choice of “resigning and moving to a different job” is not blocked.

“The option remains open to them,” he said.

Government lawyers also told the Strasbourg court that wearing a cross is not a “generally recognised” act of Christian worship and is not required by scripture.

Nadia Eweida, a BA worker, from Twickenham, south-west London, made the headlines when she was sent home in 2006 after refusing to remove a necklace with a cross or hide it from view.

An employment tribunal ruled Ms Eweida, a Coptic Christian originally from Egypt, had not suffered religious discrimination, but the airline changed its uniform policy after the case to allow all religious symbols, including crosses.

Nurse Shirley Chaplin, from Exeter, was moved to a paperwork role by the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust in Devon after refusing to remove a necklace bearing a crucifix.

Ms Chaplin told The Daily Telegraph that she felt “insulted” by the argument that Christians who are told by their employer that they cannot wear a cross at work can always find another job.

“My Christian faith isn’t something that you put on and then take off to go to work. It is with you 27/7. It is my identity, it is who I am, I cannot chop and change it,” she said.
 

Vatican Radio compares Europe to Tower of Babel

The Church and Europe
2012-09-03 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) – In the first in a series of Vatican Radio editorials focusing on the Church and Europe, Director of Programming, Fr. Andrej Koprowski S.J., explores the causes of the current economic crisis gripping the old continent and how Christianity can help Europe rediscover its dynamism:

The Bible describes how the Tower of Babel was built. While they were at work on it, the builders realised they were actually working against one another. The more they tried to be like God, the more they risked not being authentically human. They had lost a basic characteristic of their humanity: the ability to agree with one another, to understand one another, to work together.
Europe is in the grips of an economic crisis. The causes are not exclusively European or even exclusively economic. Its origins can be found in various spheres: from the financial crisis in the United States, to the rapid economic development of Asia; from growing unemployment with its inevitable effects on the future of the younger generation, to the lack of vision in educating people with respect for cultural and social needs; from the difficulty of formulating policies that support the family, to the demographic crisis and the surge of immigration towards Europe, with all its social and cultural consequences; from the long-term effects of ideologies and lobbies that fail to consider the community or the future of civil society, to exaggerated forms of individualism and false freedoms.
The development of the crisis is equally complex. There are multiple protagonists and causes for both the lack and the excess of development. Blame and merit can be equally divided. Ideologies tend to simplify reality and make it artificial, whereas problems need to be faced in terms of their human dimension. Social issues have become anthropological questions: artificial procreation, embryo research, human cloning – technological absolutes present a disturbing scenario for the future of humanity, often relying on instruments that the “culture of death” has placed at their disposal.
Culturally and demographically weakened, yet enriched by millions of new citizens coming from various continents, cultures and religions, Europe is in the throes of creating its future. In 1997, after a meeting in Gniezno, Poland, between John Paul II and presidents of seven European nations, German President, Roman Herzog, said: “Changes are happening very quickly today. In 25 years from now, if Europe is still an independent continent, or if it is just an appendage of American media or of Asian industry, it will be because Europe rediscovered its own dynamism at the right time – a dynamism it inherited from Christianity over the centuries”.
Benedict XVI adds: “In the multicultural situation in which we find ourselves, we are seeing a rationalistic European culture without a transcendent religious dimension, that is incapable of entering into dialogue with the great cultures of humanity, which all possess this transcendent religious quality, which is the human dimension… I believe that the purpose and mission of Europe is to discover this dialogue, to integrate modern faith and reason into a single anthropological vision that completes the human person and is capable of communicating human cultures”. (In-flight press conference during trip to Portugal, May 11th 2010)

Plans for Gulf’s biggest Catholic church stir backlash in troubled Bahrain

By Associated Press, Published: September 3AP
 

MANAMA, Bahrain — The building of the largest Roman Catholic church in the Gulf was supposed to be a chance for the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain to showcase its traditions of religious tolerance in a conservative Muslim region where churches largely operate under heavy limitations.

Instead, the planned church — intended to be the main center for Catholics in the region — has turned into another point of tension in a country already being pulled apart by sectarian battles between its Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities.

Hardline Sunni clerics have strongly opposed the construction of the church complex, in a rare open challenge of the country’s Sunni king. More than 70 clerics signed a petition last week saying it was forbidden to build churches in the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.

One prominent cleric, Sheik Adel Hassan al-Hamad, proclaimed in a sermon during Friday prayers last month, that there was no justification for building further churches in Bahrain, adding, “anyone who believes that a church is a true place of worship is someone who has broken in their faith in God.”

In response, the government ordered him transferred out of his mosque, located in the elite district of Riffa, where many members of the royal family live and the king has several palaces. But the transfer order touched off a wave of protests by the cleric’s supporters on social media sites and by Sunni-led political blocs. Finally, the government was forced last week to cancel the order.

The uproar reflects the widening influence and confidence of hardline Sunni groups, who have been a key support for the monarchy as it faces a wave of protests led by Shiites demanding greater political rights. Shiites account for about 70 percent of Bahrain’s population of just over half a million people, but claim they face widespread discrimination and lack opportunities granted to the Sunni minority. The monarchy has also has relied heavily on help from ultraconservative Saudi Arabia, which last year sent troops to help crush protests.

More than 50 people have been killed and hundreds detained in nearly 19 months of unrest in the strategic island kingdom, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Bahrain’s rulers have promised some reforms and urged dialogue to ease the crisis.

Instead, positions on all sides have hardened.

Many among the majority Shiites claim the Sunni monarchy is not interested in reforms that would weaken its near monopoly on power. Bahrain’s most senior Shiite cleric, Sheik Isa Qassim, has actively opposed the church plans, questioning why the government should donate land for a Christian site when Shiite mosques have been destroyed as part of the crackdowns.

A Bahrain-based political analyst, Ali Fakhro, questioned the timing of the church project at a time when the nation is still locked in its own upheavals.

“What Bahrain needs is to solve it is own internal issues rather than adding more new things that could be the source of troubles,” he said. “The plate is already full.”
So far the outcry has brought no change in plans to build the church complex, which has been backed by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s monarchy. The complex will be the size of a large shopping center — about 9,000 square meters (97,000 square foot) — in Awali, an area near Riffa, south of the capital, Manama. It is to be a base for the Vatican to the small Catholic communities in the northern Gulf, as well as a spiritual center for other Christian denominations.

Work on the compound is still in its preliminary stages and no firm date has been given for its completion, leaving open the possibility of more complaints in the coming months.

The church project is part of last year’s change by the Vatican to carve out a new apostolic district covering Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The administrative headquarters are expected to shift from Kuwait to Bahrain.

There are believed to be several million Christians in the overwhelmingly Muslim Gulf region, the vast majority of them expatriate workers who largely come from East and South Asia. Throughout the Gulf states, non-Muslim places of worship must work discreetly and cannot actively reach out for converts. In Saudi Arabia, churches are banned completely and any overt wearing of non-Muslim religious symbols is banned.

But Bahrain has a multi-religious tradition — and tolerance — that is unique in Gulf. The island nation has several Christian extended families which originally immigrated from Iraq, Iran or elsewhere in the early 20th Century and gained citizenship when Bahrain gained independence. Similarly, it has native Jewish and Hindu communities. The first Roman Catholic church in the Gulf was built in 1939 on land donated by Bahrain’s emir.

The building of the church complex “is a sign of openness, important for Bahrain, and I hope it will serve as a model for other countries, too,” the region’s bishop, the Rev. Camillo Ballin, said in a statement.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, issues over Christian churches have flared in the past year.

In Kuwait, Islamist lawmakers have proposed bans on further construction of churches. Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, Abdel Aziz Al Sheik, reportedly urged for the destruction of all Christian churches on the Arabian peninsula, but it was quickly dismissed by nearly all Islamic leaders in the region.

“Bahrain is a country of tolerance among all religions, sects and races. This is well known about Bahrain’s history,” said the Rev. Hani Aziz of Bahrain’s National Evangelical Church, who was among 19 non-Catholic Christian leaders who also met with Bahrain’s king over the project. “The construction of a church falls in line with this image.”

Palestinians seek support to end suffering

They say a a renewed Palestinian-Indian friendship would help find a just solution to their problems.

Posted on July 20, 2012, 4:53 PM

By Philip Mathew and Ritu Sharma
 New Delhi:

A two-member delegation from Palestine met with various groups in India to seek solidarity to end their people’s suffering under Israeli occupation.

“We want India to renew its friendship with Palestinians that seems to drift toward Israel,” said Fr. Jamal Khader, a professor at Bethlehem University.

Accompanied by Amjad Alqasis, an international human rights law expert, the Catholic priest has met with civil society, Churches and government to explain the Palestinian issue.

They addressed a July 17-18 consultation in New Delhi organized by the Indian Ecumenical Solidarity Network for Palestine (ISEN), a network of ecumenical organizations in India concerned about and involved in working for a just peace.

Last week, they attended a three-day consultation of Christian theologians at Chennai, that asked people visiting the Holy Land to include in their itinerary a meeting with Palestinian Christians to witness their plight.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi Wednesday, Fr. Khader said a renewed Palestinian-Indian friendship would help find a just solution to their problems.

Fr. Khader said this against the backdrop of India’s increasing relations with Israel.

“I have learned that Israel is a supplier of arms to India,” the priest said, adding that the money earned by selling arms would be used to support Israeli military industry which in turn would increase their occupation of Palestinians.

The delegates also noted that the occupation of Palestine by the Israelis was accompanied by brutal measures designed to humiliate and oppress the former.

Expressing concern over the situation of the Palestinians, the ISEN members said that India’s support to the Israeli regime is “unethical and must end immediately.”

They planned a nation-wide campaign for boycott-disvestments-sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

BDS is a campaign started on July 9, 2005 by 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations in support of the Palestinian cause for boycott, divestment and international sanctions against Israel.

In addition to the campaign, the ISEN will also engage in building public awareness about the Palestinians’ cause through meetings, seminars, media and youth initiatives.

Father Khader said two percent of the five million Palestinians are Christians.

He said that they have till now visited Europe, United States, South Africa, the Arab countries and Hong Kong to mobilize public support for the cause.
 

Two British women fired for not removing cross in the workplace

Britain experiences umpteenth attack on religious freedom as two women are fired for refusing to remove their necklaces in the workplace. The two are now taking their case to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg

Michelangelo Nasca
Rome

The case involving the two young British women - Nadia Eweida, an air hostess at Heathrow airport and Shirley Chaplin, a nurse – who were fired for refusing to remove their crosses from around their necks during working hours, may seem absurd but it is true.
The two women - who claim they are victims of discrimination -  are asking the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg to recognise their right to the freedom of faith. Meanwhile, London legislators have prepared an ad hoc draft law allowing employers to fire staff who refuse to conceal symbols of their Christian faith.

The decision of the Court in Strasbourg will be valid for all countries that are members of the Council of Europe, including Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldavia. So Russian Orthodox Christians also see this decision as a threat to their own faith.
In a statement to The Voice of Russia radio station, Filipp Riabykh, Moscow Patriarchate representative to the Council of Europe said: “In our Church’s tradition, it is obligatory for us to wear a cross. If the Court in Strasbourg allows English employers to win the case, this could have negative consequences for orthodox Christians in other European countries. We see this as completely unacceptable because faithful are required to bear the symbols of Christianity in all circumstances.”

The Christian cross - an innocuous depiction of a man condemned to death - sparks more protests than any other religious symbol.

It appears, however, that the crucifix represents a real threat to modern man, one which many non-believers call the “superstition of the converted individual”. Indeed, according to ancient Christian tradition, the individual could receive God’s grace and change life at any moment.

If the cross were just a simple little sacred symbol of Christianity, the whole affair would have been forgotten about. Francesco d’Assisi and his friends would have continued to play around with life and perhaps in time would have become a fabric merchant and even richer than his father; Mother Theresa of Calcutta would have contented herself with teaching in a girl’s school in Calcutta instead of dedicating every single moment of her existence to loving the poorest of the poor. Obviously before such a romantic and incongruent ideology of faith, no one could ever have dreamed that the crucifix would be banned from public areas.

But as the Patriarchate of Moscow awaits a verdict from Strasbourg, it has prepared, with the help of some scholars, a document which proves the right of Christians to wear the cross and profess their religion. The document has been sent to Strasbourg and will be included in the documents of the case opened against Britain by Nadia Eweida and Shirley Chaplin.

Russia and Poland, Orthodox and Catholics. The Breakthrough Message

It has been signed in Warsaw by the patriarch of Moscow and the president of the Polish bishops. To begin a common journey after centuries of hostilities. Here is the complete text. With the comment of Pope Benedict XVI

by Sandro Magister

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, right, and Metropolitan Sawa of the Polish Orthodox Church greet a Catholic clergyman at St. Mary Magdalene Orthodox Cathedral in Warsaw Aug. 16.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church made a historic visit to Poland with a message of reconciliation. (CNS photo/Kacper Pempel, Reuters

ROME, August 22, 2012 – The reports from Russia since the middle of August have been dominated by the trial of three members of the band Pussy Riot, the young women charged with insulting President Putin and singing slogans against God and the Church in the cathedral of Moscow.

During those same days, however, there took place in Eastern Europe "an important event that raises hope for the future".

This is how Benedict XVI defined, at the Angelus last Sunday, the joint declaration signed on Friday, August 17 in the castle of Warsaw by the patriarch of Moscow and all the Rus', Kirill, and by the president of the Polish episcopal conference, Archbishop Józef Michalik.

Pope Joseph Ratzinger did not define this event as "historic," but he came close. It is enough to consider that the visit of Patriarch Kirill was the first ever of a head of the Russian Orthodox Church to Poland. And that, on the contrary, John Paul II was never able to go to Moscow precisely because of the immovable burden of the age-old hostilities between Russia and the nation of his birth, Poland.

In 1965, another document of reconciliation, this time between the Catholic Churches of Poland and Germany, was signed jointly by the leaders of the two Churches. And that document is rightly recalled as an historic breakthrough.

But that of today is certainly of greater importance.

The political and religious conflicts that are meant to be healed are not limited to the last few decades, but span entire centuries: from the fighting between Polish-Lithuanian forces and those of the tsar in the seventeenth centuries to the massacre of Katyn in 1943, when the Soviet secret police massacred 22,000 Polish prisoners of war.

Moreover, those who signed this document with a fraternal spirit are the representatives of two Churches separated by a millennial schism: Catholic and Orthodox.

In addition, this is a message projected into the future. Which marks out a common path for the two Churches and the two peoples, both on the terrain of evangelization and on that of resistance to the challenges of secular culture, especially on abortion, euthanasia, the family. In these passages, the document specifically cites the magisterium of Benedict XVI: yet another sign of how much improvement there has been, with the current pontiff, in relations between the Churches of Rome and Moscow.

Below, the document –  not easy to find in the Western languages – is reproduced in its entirety.

While these are the links to the original text, in Russian:

> Sovmestnoe Posdanie Narodam Rossii i Polaši

And in Polish:

> Wspólne Przeslanie do Narodów Polski i Rosji

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JOINT MESSAGE TO THE NATIONS OF POLAND AND RUSSIA

of the Chairman of the Bishops’ Conference of Poland, Archbishop Józef Michalik, Metropolitan of Przemysl,

and the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Cyril
 

"God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone’s faults against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5: 19).

In the spirit of responsibility for the present and the future of our Churches and peoples, urged by pastoral concern, on behalf of the Catholic Church in Poland and of the Russian Orthodox Church we address this message of reconciliation to the faithful of our Churches, to our nations and all people of good will.

Proclaiming the truth that Jesus Christ is our peace and reconciliation (cf. Eph 2: 14; Rom 5: 11), aware of the call entrusted to us in the spirit of Christ’s Gospel, we wish to make our contribution to the work of rapprochement between our Churches and reconciliation between our nations.

1. Dialogue and reconciliation

Our brotherly nations have been tied not only by long centuries of neighbourhood, but also by the extensive Christian legacy of East and West. Aware of this long and shared history and the tradition, which takes its roots in the Gospel of Christ and has exerted a decisive impact on the identity, spirituality and culture of our peoples and of the entire Europe, we enter a path of honest dialogue in the hope that it will heal the wounds of the past, facilitate our overcoming mutual prejudice and misunderstanding and strengthen us in our pursuit of reconciliation.

Sin, which is the principal source of all divisions, human frailty, individual and collective egoism as well as political pressure led to mutual alienation, overt hostility and even struggle between our nations. Similar circumstances had earlier led to the dissolution of the original Christian unity. Division and schism, alien to Christ’s will, were a major scandal; therefore we redouble efforts to bring our Churches and nations closer to each other and to become more credible witnesses to the Gospel in the contemporary world. After the Second World War and the painful experience of atheism, which was imposed on our nations, today we enter a path of spiritual and material renewal. If this renewal is to be longstanding, a renewal of the human being must take place first, and through the human being the renewal of the relations between our Churches and nations.

Fraternal dialogue is the way towards such renewal. It is to facilitate a better understanding of each other and a reconstruction of mutual trust, and thus lead to reconciliation. Reconciliation, in turn, presupposes a readiness to forgive the wrongs and injustices of the past. We are obliged to do this by the prayer: "Our Father... forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those, who trespass against us." We call on our faithful to ask for the forgiveness of the wrongs, injustice and all evil we have inflicted on each other. We are confident that this is the first and foremost step to rebuild mutual trust, a precondition for a sustainable human community and complete reconciliation.

Naturally, to forgive does not mean to forget; memory is a significant part of our identity. We owe this memory also to the victims of the past, those tortured to death who laid down their lives for the faith to God and their homeland on this earth. To forgive, however, means to forgo revenge and hatred and to participate in the construction of concord and brotherhood between people, our nations and countries, which is the foundation of a peaceful future.

2. The past in the perspective of the future

The tragic events of the 20th century were experienced to a greater or lesser degree by all the countries and nations of Europe. Our countries, nations and Churches were painfully afflicted. The Polish and Russian people share the experience of the Second World War and the period of repressions imposed by the totalitarian regimes. These regimes, with their atheist ideology, fought against all forms of religious life and waged an especially atrocious war on Christianity and our Churches. Millions of innocent people fell victim to this war, of which we are reminded by numerous places of murder and graves on Polish and Russian soil. Sometimes the events of our often difficult and tragic shared past give rise to mutual resentments and accusations, which prevent the healing of old wounds.

An objective recognition of facts and an account of the magnitude of the tragedies and dramas of the past is an urgent task for historians and specialists. We appreciate the action taken by competent commissions and teams of experts in our respective countries. We express a conviction that their efforts will allow us to learn unadulterated historical truth, help account for doubts and effectively overcome negative stereotypes. We express a conviction that sustainable reconciliation as the foundation of a peaceful future may take place exclusively on the basis of a complete truth about our shared past. We call upon all those who pursue good, sustainable peace and happy future: politicians, social activists, people of science, culture and the arts, those who believe in God and those who do not, representatives of the Churches: do not falter in your efforts to foster dialogue, support all that facilitates the reconstruction of mutual trust and brings people closer to one another and all that allows us to build a peaceful future of our countries and nations, a future free from violence and wars.

3. Together in the face of new challenges

As a result of political and social transformations, at the close of the 20th century our Churches were finally able to fulfil their mission of evangelisation, and therefore to help our societies develop on the basis of traditional Christian values. Throughout history, Christianity contributed immensely to the formation of the spirituality and culture of our nations. Today, in an era of religious indifference and widespread secularisation, we take every effort so that the social life and culture of our nations should not be stripped of principal moral values, the cornerstone of a viable peaceful future.

The essential task of the Church until the end of time is the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ. All Christians, not only the clergy, but also the lay faithful are called to preach the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and to proclaim the Good News with their words and through the witness of their lives, in an individual, familial and social context. We recognise the autonomy of secular and ecclesiastical authority, but at the same time call for cooperation with respect to care for the family, education, social order and other questions which are vital for the good of the general public. We want to uphold tolerance and first and foremost defend fundamental freedoms, primarily religious freedom, as well as to guard the right of the presence of religion in public life.

Today our nations are faced with yet new challenges. Fundamental moral principles based on the Ten Commandments are questioned under the pretence of retaining the principle of secularism or the protection of freedom. We are faced with the promotion of abortion, euthanasia and same-sex relations, persistently shown as a form of marriage; a consumerist lifestyle is endorsed, traditional values rejected, while religious symbols are removed from public space. Quite often we encounter sings of hostility towards Christ, His Gospel and Cross; attempts are made to exclude the Church from public life. A misinterpreted secularism assumes a form of fundamentalism and in reality is a form of atheism.

We call on everyone to respect the inalienable dignity of each human being, created in God’s image and likeness (Gn 1: 27). In the name of the future of our nations we call for the respect and protection of the life of each and every human being from the moment of conception until natural death. We believe not only terrorism and armed conflict, but also abortion and euthanasia to be grave sins against life and a disgrace to contemporary civilisation. The family, a permanent relation between man and woman, is a sound foundation of all societies. As an institution founded by God (cf. Gn 1: 28; 2:23-24), the family warrants respect and protection as it is the cradle of life, a wholesome place of development, a guarantee of social stability, and a sign of hope for society. The family is a place conducive for the development of the human being who is responsible for himself, other people and the society he is part of.

We look with sincere concern, hope and love to young people, whom we wish to protect from demoralisation and to educate in the spirit of the Gospel. We want to teach young people how to love God, their fellow human beings and the earthly homeland as well as to foster in them a spirit of Christian culture, which will bear fruit with respect, tolerance and justice. We are certain that the Risen Christ offers hope not only for our Churches and nations, but also for Europe and the entire world. May He grant His grace so that each Pole can see each Russian and each Russian can see each Pole as their friend and brother.

Both Poles and Russians have profound respect for the Holy Virgin Mary. Having trust in the intercession of the Mother of God, we entrust to Her care the great work of the reconciliation and rapprochement between our Churches and nations. Recalling the words of Paul the Apostle: Christ’s peace must reign in your hearts (Col 3:15), we confer on all our blessing, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

+ Józef Michalik, Archbishop Metropolitan of Przemysl

+ Cyril Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia

Warsaw, August 17, 2012

(Translation from Radio Vaticana)

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The complete text of the words with which Benedict XVI, after the Angelus on Sunday, August 19, hailed the publication of the joint message:

"In these days the patriarch of Moscow and all the Rus', Kirill I, is a guest of the Orthodox Church in Poland. I cordially greet His Holiness, as well as all of the Orthodox faithful. The program of this visit also included encounters with the Catholic bishops and the common declaration of the desire to increase the fraternal union of collaboration in spreading the values of the Gospel in the contemporary world, in the spirit of the same faith in Christ Jesus. This is an important event that raises hope for the future. I entrust its fruits to the benevolence of Mary, imploring the blessing of God."

__________
 

ACN News, Monday, 25th June 2012 – INDIA

Miracles happen?
By John Newton

REPEATED incidents of supernatural healings are a primary cause of the massive growth of the Church in a remote corner of India – according to the region’s bishop.
 Bishop John Kattrukudiyil of Itangar, Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India, highlighted the phenomena of reported healings in explaining the growth of the Church in his diocese from virtually no faithful to about 40 percent of the population within 35 years.

During a visit to the headquarters of the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need(ACN)in Germany, the bishop described the situation in his diocese saying: “Time and time again they tell me story after story of healings that have happened in various places. “What they tell me fills me with amazement.”

The bishop, whose region of India neighbours China, Bhutan and Burma, added: “I have a lot of theological background in my studies and it’s easy to become sceptical about all these kind of things, but the people are absolutely convinced that they have received healing.”
He told of one healing incident involving a man who renounced a past spent persecuting the Church and converted to marry a Catholic girl.
 Bishop Kattrukudiyil said: “After becoming a Catholic the man was asked to go and pray over a paralysed man. He was unwilling but he still went and prayed and the next day that man rose up and walked to the church.
“He was so shocked at this miraculous experience he began to go to church and now today he is a very active member of the parish.”
However, the bishop admitted that, while he had heard many first-hand accounts of this kind, they were often treated with scepticism when he related them to others.

(Bishop John Thomas Kattrukudiyil of Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh in north east India)

He said: “When I recount these stories to people in Europe and elsewhere they say ‘O bishop, you are telling us stories’.”
But he went on to describe how these experiences were deepening people’s spiritual lives.
 The bishop added: “There are so many [healing] stories coming to me which we cannot ignore.
“This is the experience of a very young Church, experiencing the same grace as that of the Church of Apostolic times.”
Bishop Kattrukudiyil said: “The fact that many people experienced healing by praying to Jesus attracted many people to the Church in its early days – that and a kind of spiritual peace that they got by belonging to the Church.”
He added: “From their experience, they found that when they came together and went to the house of someone who was sick and prayed over him the individual experienced healing.
 “People who had had been suffering from various sicknesses for a long time were healed – it’s really an experience of the early Church that these people had.”

According to the bishop, Christians have mushroomed in Arunachal Pradesh over the last 35 years – from virtually no faithful to an expected 40 percent of the total population when the 2010 census results are finally released.

The country was closed to Christian missionaries because of strict entry permit laws – which were only revoked in the 1990s – but the situation changed when young people in Arunachal Pradesh sought education in Catholic schools in neighbouring Assam.
Some students at the Catholic schools asked for baptism and, with their parents’ permission, received the sacrament before returning to their villages, where the faith spread.
Some of these students were subsequently elected to government posts and helped to change the situation.
While in many places new Catholics faced beatings, house burnings, the slaughter of domestic animals and expulsion from of jobs or schools, gradually things improved, and no incidents of persecution or harassment have been recorded in the past twenty years.
Bishop Kattrukudiyil said: “Today the church is not tolerated but looked up to for her developmental works in education and health care.
“The politicians use every occasion to praise the Church for her philanthropic activities.”

Bishop Kattrukudiyil thanked Aid to the Church in Need for its help in supporting the growth of the Church through projects to build a minor seminary, convents and chapels as well as through training for catechists and teachers.
He said: “ACN helps especially on catechesis, training, building chapels – these are the most important areas of our activities
“We always feel that ACN is there behind us willing to help us wherever we are in need.”

On Line donations can be made at www.aidtochurch.org

Where the Church's Growth Is Fastest
Bishop From Northeast India Speaks on Christ's Appeal

ROME, FEB. 3, 2012 (Zenit.org).- The northeast corner of India is the place where the Catholic Church has grown most over the past 30 years, with an average of about 10,000 adult baptisms every year -- and this despite the fact that for many generations missionaries were banned.

Mark Riedemann for Where God Weeps in cooperation with Aid to the Church in Need spoke with a bishop from the region, John Thomas Kattrukudiyil of Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh.

Q: Since the 1970s the Catholic Church has exploded in this northeastern corner of India growing today to a number a little under 200,000. To what can we attribute this explosive growth of the Catholic faith?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: This is a phenomenon that surprised everybody. The Church, the government, everyone was surprised. The immediate reason I can give was the desire of the young people of Arunachal Pradesh to profit from the charitable activities of the Christian missionaries. They saw the good activities done by the missionaries and since the missionaries were not allowed in Arunachal Pradesh they thought: "well let us go out and invite them." One thing led to another; they received baptism and they became Christians, Catholics. Another factor is that the young were not at all happy with their traditional religious practices. For example, they used to have to offer many sacrifices when someone was sick. This is very expensive and as the traditional religion imposed more and more such expenses they then turned to the new religion, Christianity, that asked them only to pray to Jesus. They then found that when they prayed to Jesus they were getting healed, they were getting graces. So that helped a lot to bring about change.

Q: Can one say that traditional religions are based on fear?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: It is basically based on fear. They believe in many evil spirits and these spirits control their lives and they always have to placate these evil spirits. And how do you placate them, for example, in an area where there is no medical help available? By offering more and more animal sacrifices. When someone is sick, the village traditional religion leader tells them that this is because of an evil spirit so you have to offer 10 mithun -- the Indian bison -- for sacrifice, or five pigs or 10 cows. For a village this involves hundreds or thousands of animals and that is a big burden on them. As soon as they saw an alternative, they jumped on it.

Q: And the missionaries could come and say: "Have no fear, there is one spirit, the Holy Spirit, and it's a good spirit."

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: Yes and especially in presenting him as our loving Father in contrast to these spirits who are only there to threaten us and to persecute us. I think that made a big difference.

Q: And this extraordinary growth in the face of the fact that in Arunachal Pradesh, and the other sister states of northeastern India, there is an anti-conversion law. What is the anti-conversion law and how did this come about?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: This anti-conversion law exists not only in the northeast like Arunachal Pradesh but in other states like Orissa, and Pradesh. How did this come about? This law came out of fear among a section of Hindus that Christianity might spread all over India. It is an unfounded fear though it may be that it is being used as a political tool in order to win political power. Some Hindu's whip up the emotions of the Hindu majority by saying that Hindus are in danger and thus the need to bring all the polarized Hindus under one political apparatus and then turn that group into a political power. This could be the political angle to the whole story; otherwise it is unbelievable that Christians who number no more than 2% of the population could pose a threat to a big country like India.

Q: As a consequence of not having any priests, it was the laity who started the evangelization in Arunachal Pradesh?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: Yes, especially the women. A priest established a mission at the gates of Arunachal Pradesh close to the market place. He met some of the Arunachal women and invited them to the mission. These people were more than happy to have someone to talk to. While they were doing their business in the market and through talking to them, he learned a few words of their language. They trusted him. He then mentioned his faith to them. They accepted and many of them were baptized. They went back to their village. He mentioned too that their children were welcome to study. So they brought their children to the mission. He put these children in the schools. In the end this mission station became the center for baptisms. Many people would say: "Let me go to Harmuti to get baptized" and they would come, stay there a day or two, get baptized and go back to their village.

Q: And as we know, today, there are hundreds…

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: At least about 180,000 Catholics must be there.

Q: … And 10,000 adult baptisms every year?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: Close to that number takes place every year.

Q: What would be the most important tool in terms of the presence of the Catholic Church in Arunachal Pradesh?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: The government and the tribal population accept us because of our contribution in the field of education. Everybody knows that the whole northeast owes a great deal to the missionaries because a large percentage of the populations who are educated have gone through our schools.

Q: In fact, many generations coming now into leadership have passed through these Catholic schools?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: Many of those who initiated this anti-conversion law have their children and grandchildren in Catholic schools. They say: "Yes, yes it is good that the missionaries have schools for us, but not for the poor because they may get converted." They want the poor to remain ignorant. They just want to use the Church facilities for themselves.

Q: … Only for their own purposes?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: Yes and in fact, this tendency is seen also among a certain sections of the elite in Arunachal Pradesh who ask me: "Bishop, why are you wasting your time opening schools in the remote villages? You have a very nice school in Itanagar. Put all your resources there; charge a very high fee and we will send our children there." I say: "No, that is not the purpose for which I am here. I would open a school in the most remote village sooner than here in the city."

Q: And the purpose is to reach out to the poorest of the poor?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: Yes. Accepting Christianity is a byproduct but we would like to give these people who have been denied the basic right to education the possibility of good education.

Q: Would you say that the primary phase of evangelization has passed or are we still in the primary phase?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: The expansion of the Church at a rapid phase has slowed down. Somehow with the passage of time, the coming of missionaries, institutionalization of the Church this rapid phase has slowed down but the appreciation for the Church has remained and the people still keep coming. The focus now is on consolidation like giving catechesis, and this has its own difficulties: difficult terrain to reach the villages and the question of language, all these dialects, every priest is not able to learn all these dialects so we need translators and then lay catechists.

Q: The first evangelization came from the Baptists and they did a fantastic job. You have good relations with the Baptists. Now there are new churches coming in. How is the relationship with all these groups and how is this inter-Christian dialogue managed?

Bishop Kattrukudiyil: The first Christians in Arunachal Pradesh were the Baptists, however, today in terms of influence and visibility, the Catholic Church is by far the most visible in Arunachal Pradesh. When the government wants to deal with the Christian groups they approach the bishop of the Catholic Church to find out what the Christians will say. I have over time found that all the Christian groups generally and very subtly accepted the leadership of the bishop and accepted the bishop as a representative of the Christian groups. In fact, when they need to do something they approach me and they follow the Catholic line in terms of all socio-political realities despite the fact that they are keen to keep their individuality.

* * *

This interview was conducted by Mark Riedemann for "Where God Weeps," a weekly television and radio show produced by Catholic Radio and Television Network in conjunction with the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need.
 

A Muslim Finds the Catholic Faith…Through Geography and Theology

British soccer team owner and prominent philanthropist Ilyas Khan reflects on his conversion.
Daily News by EDWARD PENTIN 04/10/2012

Ilyas Khan

Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar was instrumental in helping Ilyas Khan, a British philanthropist and former Muslim, to become Catholic. But so too were many other distinctly Catholic influences, all amounting to a “pull” towards the faith rather than a “push” away from Islam.
Khan, a merchant banker by training and the owner of the Accrington Stanley soccer team, is also chairman of the prominent British charity Leonard Cheshire Disability — the largest organization in the world helping people with disabilities. In a revealing interview with Register Rome correspondent Edward Pentin, Khan explains in more detail what drew him to the Catholic Church in 2009.

What brought you to the faith? Was there anything in Islam, perhaps Muslims’ devotion to Our Lady, which helped you to convert?
Yes and no. Devotion to Our Lady on a personal basis is a big part of my faith, but at the same time, I know it wasn’t anything to do with my upbringing as a Muslim. My first tentative steps towards Catholicism were taken in my very early infancy. My mother was very ill at that time, and I was raised till about the age of 3 or 4 by a grandmother who was determinedly Catholic and Irish. I went to a Church school, and I think that when I started classes I didn’t think of myself as anything other than being Christian.
I also benefited from being brought up in Lancashire, up on the Pennines and close to the Ribble Valley. If there was ever a Catholic heartland in England, that was it — the great stronghold that never really acknowledged the Reformation.
Later on, when I was entering university, divine Providence intervened for a second time, and I stayed at Netherhall House, which is an Opus Dei student hall of residence in London. But, in between, say from the ages of about 4 to 17, I had been raised as a Muslim in a Muslim household. I had gone to mosque, learned the Quran. So, yes, I was raised a Muslim, but I don’t think there was any aspect of Islam that might have nudged me towards becoming a Catholic.

Was that time in Netherhall very influential, in terms of bringing you into the faith?
Very much so, yes. However, at that point in time, I don’t think I had the guts to convert or be received into the Church, or even take formal instruction. Apostasy is something Islam takes very seriously. In the eyes of a great many, Muslims’ apostasy is actually (as opposed to merely theoretically) punishable by death. So Netherhall was absolutely instrumental. I remember very clearly my devotion to prayer was really formed there, surrounded as I was by living examples of a wonderfully spiritual faith.

Would you say you came to the faith almost subconsciously?
Not really. I think I came to my faith wholly consciously. By the age of 18 and 19, I was a reasoning and questioning young adult. And by then I had discovered there was a brilliant person called Hans Urs von Balthasar. There was a library in Netherhall where I started reading theology. That’s where I came across Origen, and, to a very large extent, that’s also where I was able to study and appreciate the work of St. Augustine. So I was very conscious but somewhat apprehensive. Both my parents were still alive at the time, and part of my reticence was my unwillingness to cause them hurt. I don’t know quite how I would have described myself by the time I graduated from university, but probably “a closet Catholic” comes close.

What gave you the courage in the end?
Apart from the Holy Spirit? A culmination of two things: a greater degree of certainty in my own moral compass; and if there was a push away from Islam or a pull, it was much more the pull of Christ. It wasn’t ever in my mind a negative thing [to convert]. The other important factor was my very regular attendance, over a decade prior to my formally being received, at a church — St. Joseph’s in Hong Kong. I went to live in Asia and Hong Kong in my mid-20s, and that’s where I discovered my affinity for traditional Catholicism. The simple acts of faith — ritual, the liturgy and congregational prayer — were the stepping stones.

Did you have a sense, in those years leading up to being received, of a growing sense that the Catholic faith is the truth?
Yes, though that’s perhaps slightly melodramatic. At this stage of my life, when my religion is at the core of what I do, it’s very difficult to differentiate between any actions that might or might not be motivated by faith. I would hope that everything I do in my life is motivated and guided by faith. To answer your question in a slightly different way: I never doubted, from about my mid-20s onwards, that I was a Christian, and my path towards Catholicism, as opposed to Christianity per se, was really quite a quick one. In retrospect, the heart of that journey actually took four or five years and was more academically or intellectually based. I have to say it was Von Balthasar who guided me.

Were Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI also influential? Both have been described as so-called Balthasarians.
That’s a really good question. I’ve never been asked that question before. Yes, well, Cardinal Ratzinger, the current Pope, definitely qualifies as being “Balthasarian,” and Blessed John Paul II raised Balthasar to becoming a cardinal. Obviously, John Paul II was an influence beyond his regard for Von Balthasar — how could one not be influenced by such a great man? Like a great many people, Balthasar himself was not just a gigantic intellect, but also articulated how the mystery of faith is central to our lives as Christians. And, in that regard, the single most moving moment for me happened when I was in my mid-30s. I was walking past the Pieta in St. Peter’s, and I remember being literally arrested in my tracks by a combination of four or five things all at once. You asked me about my relationship with the Blessed Mother of God — well, that moment in time was really important. That can be described as being the turning point.

Was it the beauty of the Pietà that struck you?
Yes — and the context. This is God, I thought. This really is God. You must remember that one of the big things when we look at traditional Islam is the heresy — in their opinion — of equating the mortal Jesus with God. And if there is ever an obstacle that a Muslim convert has to contend with, intellectually and emotionally, more than anything else, that is it. At that moment, in front of the Pietà, I realized, through sheer emotion, that the truth of our religion is so simple and so direct.

You mean the fact that Jesus is not just a prophet, but God Himself?
Yes, absolutely, and I think at that moment — I remember it distinctly; it still moves me to tears — there was no doubt in my mind. It was so clear. I’m afraid it would be impossible for me to articulate that feeling in mere words. If there was a “before” and an “after,” then that was my point of arrival, so to speak.

In terms of being concerned about the “apostasy” charge from Muslims — is it something that keeps you up at night?
No, not at all. It doesn’t keep me up at night. However, I can tell you where it becomes relevant: In various different forums — in articles, magazines and on radio and once or twice on TV — I have tended to get a fair degree of coverage in Britain, where I’m also well known as the owner of one of our best-known football teams. I get described with a standard tagline saying something like: “The most prominent recent Catholic convert.” Whilst there have been many times when I have been on the receiving end of threats from individual Muslims or Islamic organizations who might read and react to these articles and interviews, I have to say that those occasions have absolutely never kept me up at night. I have received my fair share of hate mail and threats of violence, but I conduct myself with what I hope is a simple dignity and refuse to be drawn into a life governed by fear or undue caution.
Conversely, what I am interested in is where Islam and Catholicism meet; here, there is a degree of commonality. And my attitude is to exhibit for those who are not Catholics the beauty, purity, wonder and the privilege of being a Catholic. I’m just very straightforward and calm about this issue, and that’s a reflection of my faith.

Some prominent converts from Islam can be very negative towards their former religion, but you don’t seem to have that view.
My views have the benefit of being blessedly simple. I don’t think there’s any complexity in my faith, and, as I said earlier, I was pulled towards my Christian faith, not pushed away from Islam.
However, I must admit that I do have a great deal of sadness in my heart when I contemplate people who use Islam to justify their actions. These actions aren’t just un-Islamic — they are inhuman and have nothing to do with my view of Islam as a religion. Sadly, there appear to be a very large number of Muslims for whom anger and violence seem intuitive first responses to anything they don’t agree with. Beyond that, I feel that the two religions, Islam and Christianity, might be described as “distant cousins.” Remember, I was raised a Muslim, and I have been to Medina and Mecca, and I can see some of the inherent qualities. But we must also admit that the point of departure, the difference between the two religions, is vast. So while there are similarities, and I can see them, they don’t count really for very much. … I celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ is love. It’s a simple statement. It is the defining difference.

And it is very simple in its totality.
Yes, it is; but then the thing we call “love,” that we as Christians concern ourselves (with) at the heart of our faith, is a living, real and tangible quality. Jesus is actually with us; we don’t need metaphors or vague conceptual examples of what love “might” be in order to inspire or inform us. We are blessed by the Holy Sacrament and nourished by the direct intercession of Our Lord through his sacrifice. In that regard, Von Balthasar has helped to change the basis of conversation about the relationship between the Church, Christ and the Holy Spirit. He created a new understanding around the semantics of “love” in a religious context. I, therefore, can’t really say much about the contrasts between Catholicism and other religions, be they Islam or Hinduism, for example, but simply affirm the unerring simplicity of my own faith.

Edward Pentin writes from Rome
 

Pope says personal conversion is first step of New Evangelization

By David Ker
Pope Benedict XVI. Credit: Mazur.

Vatican City, May 24, 2012 / 03:48 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI told the bishops of Italy today that personal holiness is an indispensable first step to reconverting their country and the Western world to Christianity. 
"The fundamental condition in order to be able to speak about God is to speak with God, increasingly to become men of God, nourished by an intense life of prayer and molded by his grace,” the Pope said on May 24.
He encouraged his fellow bishops to allow themselves “to be found and seized by God so as to help the people we meet be touched by the Truth.”
Pope Benedict made his remarks to the participants of the 64th General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference, which is being held May 21--25.
The Italian bishops gathered in the Vatican’s Synod Hall, where they heard the Pope lament how for many people in the West, God has “become the great Unknown and Jesus is simply an important figure of the past.”
The Pope said that this is resulting in people no longer understanding the “profound value “ of the “spiritual and moral patrimony” that the West’s roots are in and that “is its lifeblood.” What was once “fertile land,” he said, is now at risk of “becoming a barren desert and the good seed (is in danger) of being suffocated, trampled on and lost.
Even many baptized people in the West “have lost their identity” and “do not know the essential contents of the faith, or they believe they can cultivate faith without ecclesial mediation,” he warned the bishops.

The practical impact of this, Pope Benedict said, is that while many baptized “look doubtfully at Church teaching,” others have reduced “the Kingdom of God to certain broad values, which are certainly related to the Gospel but which do not touch the central nucleus of Christian faith.”
But the Pope did not finish his remarks without offering a solution to the Italian bishops.
He pointed them to the New Evangelization, which has its roots in the prophetic words of Pope John XXIII. At the opening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, John XXIII said that the council would help “transmit pure and integral doctrine, without any attenuation or misrepresentation” but in a new way “according to what is required by our times.”
This, explained Pope Benedict, is the key or “hermeneutic” of “continuity and reform” required to properly understand the council today.
He repeated, though, that any new evangelization will not be achieved simply by “new methods of announcing the Gospel” or by “pastoral activity” but only through personal conversion.
“We must begin again from God, celebrated, professed and witnessed,” said the Pope. “Our primary task, our true and only task, remains that of dedicating our lives to the one thing that is truly dependable, necessary and ultimate.”
Before concluding with a prayer to the Holy Spirit, Pope Benedict assured the bishops that the Catholic faith preached by word and example still has the power to draw all people to Christ.
“Where space is given to the Gospel, and therefore to friendship with Christ, man realizes he is the object of a love which purifies, warms, renews, and makes us capable of serving mankind with divine love,” he said.
 

At last! A judge who fights for marriage: Senior family court judge campaigns to break Britain's 'divorce addiction'

• •Sir Paul Coleridge said family breakdown is 'destructive' to society
• Tomorrow the judge will launch a campaign to promote marriage
• He voiced concern over the 'Hello! magazine, Hollywood image' of marriage

PUBLISHED: 21:30 GMT, 29 April 2012 | UPDATED: 22:37 GMT, 30 April 2012

High Court judge Sir Paul Coleridge, who was assigned to the Family Division, said family breakdown is 'destructive'.
Britons have an addiction to divorce fuelled by a 'Hello! magazine' attitude to marriage, a top judge has warned.
 

Sir Paul Coleridge said family breakdown was 'one of the most destructive scourges of our time'.
Citing growing evidence of harm to a generation of children, he said youngsters whose parents separated saw their educational achievements and job prospects damaged.
In a highly unusual move for a serving judge, Sir Paul will tomorrow launch a campaign – backed by senior legal figures and Church leaders – to promote marriage.
There was 'incontrovertible' proof that married couples were more likely to stay together, he said.

Sir Paul, one of the most senior family court judges, voiced particular concern over what he called the 'Hello! magazine, Hollywood image' of marriage, saying: 'The more we have spent on weddings, the greater the rate of family breakdown.'
And he also warned that a trend for older couples to split once children leave home was having an 'extremely emotionally disturbing' impact on families.
Sir Paul's campaign is expected to be supported by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu and the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, while patrons of the campaign include former chief family law judge Baroness Butler-Sloss, family lawyer and academic Baroness Deech and Baroness Shackleton, the divorce lawyer who acted for Prince Charles and Sir Paul McCartney.

The judge warned that courts had 'streamlined' family cases to contend with the growing numbers, making it too easy for couples to split – suggesting they should be required to go through counselling and mediation.
'We don't traditionally comment on matters of policy, but there are very few people who have had as much experience of what is going on as the family judiciary,' he told the Daily Mail.
'We have watched it get worse and worse and worse. The time for sucking our teeth is over. Waiting for government or others to take action is merely an excuse for moaning and inactivity.'
According to official figures, there were 400,000 cases heard in the family courts in 2010 and 120,000 divorces, up 5 per cent on the previous year.

A report will say there is now overwhelming evidence that married relationships are more stable and the children of such relationships fare better.
There were 241,000 marriages in 2010, a near 100-year low. Some 22 per cent of marriages in 1970 had ended in divorce by the 15th wedding anniversary, whereas 33 per cent of marriages now end in the same period.
Cohabitation, meanwhile, rose from a million couples in 2001 to 2.9million in 2010 – and it is projected to rise to 3.7million by 2031.
'Marriage is not something that falls out of the sky ready-made on to beautiful people in white linen suits, it involves endless hard work and love'
- Lord Justice Coleridge

Referring to the 'Hello! magazine' attitude, he said: 'Marriage is not something that falls out of the sky ready-made on to beautiful people in white linen suits.
'It involves endless hard work, compromises, forgiveness and love.However right the person is, they might not be right two years later. It doesn't matter how wonderful you appear to be to your partner at the beginning, you will begin to display faults that we all have.
'In order for a relationship to last, you have to hang in there and adjust and change and alter and understand. Long, stable marriages are carved out of the rock of human stubbornness and selfishness and difficulties.'

Sir Paul, 62, who has been married for nearly 40 years and has three children and three grandchildren, also warned of the rise in so-called 'silver splitters' – couples who separate late in life, often when their children leave home. In the past decade divorce among the over-50s has risen by 10 per cent.
'It is very sad that we now see such a huge number of people in their 50s, 60s and 70s getting divorced and carving up their estates and their lives,' he said.

 'There has been a dramatic increase. The truth is that people think it's fine to do that once children are grown up. It probably isn't as destructive as when as child is 12, but if you speak to those in their 20s or 30s who experience their parents breaking up long after they have left home, they will tell you almost always that it's an extremely emotionally disturbing thing for them, and indeed for any grandchildren. It creates huge sensitivities. The tectonic plates of a family shift.'
Sir Paul said he backed proposals to make it compulsory for anyone wishing to apply to the courts over an acrimonious separation to attend mediation or counselling.
Tory ministers have suggested that separating couples should be made to understand the impact of conflict on children.
But the judge suggested a wider shake up of the law, which he said dated back to the 1950s.

'The law and the courts have undoubtedly played a part, because in order to manage the enormous flood of cases we have had to streamline the law and the process. There is no such thing as a defended divorce any longer. We see that the fight is no longer over the divorce itself, but over money and children,' he said.
Sir Paul said he was not interested in 'preaching' or pronouncing moral judgments. And he defended the right of judges to speak out on issues of concern in which they had expertise.
It was the same, he said, as doctors alerting the public to an epidemic they had detected. 'It would be irresponsible to remain quiet. This is an exceptional situation,' he said.
The Marriage Foundation, the new campaign group he will lead, will accept divorce is sometimes unavoidable and will not argue that those who make a sustained commitment to one another outside marriage are in some way inferior.

 'This is not going to be a cosy club for the smug and self-satisfied of middle England but, we hope, the start of a national movement with the aim of changing attitudes across the board from the very top to the bottom of society, and thus improve the lives of us all, especially children,' the judge said.
Instead, the campaign will seek to promote marriage as the 'gold standard' for relationships that benefit couples, children and wider society.
A report to be published by the foundation will say there is now overwhelming evidence that married relationships are more stable and the children of such relationships fare better.
A baby born to cohabiting parents is more than ten times more likely to see its parents separate than one born to married parents.

Among natural parents, almost 90 per cent of married couples were still together when their children were seven compared with just 69 per cent of couples who were cohabiting. Almost one in four children living with cohabiting parents as a baby, meanwhile, was in lone-mother families by the age of seven compared with only one in ten living with married parents.
The costs and consequences for society, the foundation will say, are unsustainable.
Half a million children and adults are drawn into the family law and justice system every year, with 3.8million children currently caught up in the family justice system.
The financial cost to society of broken relationships is estimated to be £44billion a year. Research by the Youth Justice Board suggests 70 per cent of young offenders are from broken families.
The positive benefits of marriage include higher incomes and greater accumulation of wealth, avoiding the loss of income that tends to follow a breakdown.
Marriage also improves health, with one study suggesting the health gain may be as large as the benefit from giving up smoking.

The five champions of marriage
The five key members of the Marriage Foundation have notched up some 204 years of married life between them.

Lord Justice Coleridge, 62
Has been married to Judith for 39 years. They have two sons and one daughter.
Sir Paul Coleridge was privately educated at Cranleigh School, Surrey, and called to the bar in 1970.
He married his wife, a boatbuilder's daughter, in a simple ceremony – with a reception in a boatyard – in 1973. He has speculated that expensive weddings create a greater risk of family breakdown.
He has previously said that 'splitting families is like splitting the atom. You get enormous quantities of pent-up emotional energies that spill out and are completely unpredictable, plus all sorts of collateral damage that nobody expected'.

Baroness Deech, 69
Has been married to Dr John Stewart for 45 years. They have one daughter.
Ruth Deech was ennobled as Baroness Deech of Cumnor in Oxfordshire in 2005.
Her father was a historian and journalist who fled the Nazis in Vienna and her family arrived in Britain on September 3, 1939, the day war was declared on Germany.
Lady Deech believes the number of weddings has fallen to its lowest level since 1895 because 'religion is a waning force, women have financial independence, there is state support for lone parents, children are no longer classified as illegitimate, divorce is easy and there is no recrimination over sex and birth out of wedlock'.

Lord Justice Toulson, 65
Has been married to Elizabeth for 39 years. They have two sons and two daughters.
Sir Roger Toulson was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal in January 2007 after a distinguished 38-year career in the law.
He is patron of several charities, including Time for Families, a Christian charity that supports families, and Keep Out, a scheme aimed at rehabilitating young offenders.
In a case in which a morbidly obese man argued that his local health authority should fund his fat-reducing surgery, he said: 'Human rights law is sometimes in danger of becoming over-complicated.'

Baroness Shackleton, 55
Has been married to Ian Ridgeway Shackleton for 27 years. They have two daughters.
Fiona Shackleton is the personal solicitor to Princes William and Harry. She has been nicknamed 'the Steel Magnolia' for her toughness and has handled high-profile divorces, including those of the Prince of Wales and Diana, the Duke and Duchess of York and Sir Paul and Lady McCartney.
She has been quoted as saying: 'I like sticking up for people, making sure they are not taken advantage of. Even if they are incredibly rich.'

Baroness Butler-Sloss, 78
Has been married to Joseph Butler-Sloss for 54 years. They have two sons and one daughter.
Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was the most senior woman judge in Britain until her retirement.
She made many controversial decisions, including blocking a man's legal battle to see his test-tube baby daughter, conceived after he broke up with her mother.
When criticised by Fathers 4 Justice, she said: 'I cannot meet [them] because they are not being sensible, and as long as they throw condoms with purple powder and send a double-decker bus with a loudspeaker outside my private house in the West Country there is no point.'
 

South Korea, the Asian Tiger of the Church

The number of Catholics there is growing at a staggering pace. With many thousands of new baptized adults every year. The report of a great missionary

by Sandro Magister

ROME, April 18, 2012 – The seven years of pontificate that Benedict XVI will mark tomorrow are associated, in common opinion, with the general decline of the Church.

But this opinion is nurtured by a view restricted to the Christianity of the Old Continent: to a Europe that in effect has suffered the blows of a growing secularization.
If one simply widens the perspective, in fact, the reality appears different. In the past century the Catholic Church has experienced the most extraordinary phase of missionary expansion in its history.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, in sub-Saharan Africa there were fewer than 2 million Catholics. A hundred years later, there were 130 million.
And also on a worldwide scale, the twentieth century was for the Church a century of numeric explosion. From 266 million at the beginning of the 1900’s, Catholics reached 1.1 billion a hundred years later. An increase of  a factor of four, more than the parallel increase of the planet's population.
It is an expansion that shows no sign of stopping, and began in the 1800’s, precisely when the Catholic Church in Europe was undergoing the attacks of a culture and of powers strongly hostile to Christianity.
Today the context is analogous. For the Catholic Church in Europe, these are lean years. But in other regions of the world it is the opposite.
South Korea, for example, is a country in which Catholicism is growing at a dizzying pace. And precisely among the most active and "modern" strata of the population.
The report that follows – published on Easter by the newspaper of the Italian Episcopal conference, "Avvenire" – was written by one of the leading experts on Catholic missions in the world. A missionary himself, Fr. Piero Gheddo is today the director, in Rome, of the historical office of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions.
He is the author of numerous volumes and collaborated in the drafting of the 1990 encyclical “"Redemptoris Missio” of by John Paul II.
__________

SEOUL, AN EASTER FOR THE RECORD BOOKS
by Piero Gheddo

There may be no other country in the world that over the past half century has seen growth as sustained as that of South Korea, including conversions to Christ.

From 1960 to 2010, the number of inhabitants went from 23 to 48 million; per capita income from 1,300 to 19,500 dollars; Christians from 2 to 30 percent, of which about 10-11 percent, 5.5 million, are Catholic; there were 250 Korean priests, today there are 5,000.

I first went to South Korea in 1986 with Fr. Pino Cazzaniga, a missionary of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions in Japan, who speaks Korean.

Even back then it was a Church with many conversions, and it is still so today. Every parish has from 200 to 400 baptisms of converts from Buddhism each year. Most of the converts are city dwellers. Each year there are 130-150 new priests, one for every 1,110 baptized. In 2008, the proportion of Catholics exceeded 10 percent of South Koreans, and grows by about 3 percent each year. In 2009, the number of baptized reached 157,000, and 149 priests were ordained, 21 more than in 2008. More than two thirds of the priests are under the age of 40. "Over the past ten years, the Catholic Church in Korea has gone from three to five million faithful; in Seoul we are 14 percent," Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, archbishop of Seoul, has said in an interview.

The Catholic Church in South Korea is the one that is growing most vigorously in Asia. There is full religious freedom in South Korea, and the secretary of the Korean episcopal conference, Bishop Simon E. Chen, told me that Koreans demonstrate a strong propensity for Christianity, because it introduces the idea of the equality of all human beings created by the one God. Moreover, both Catholics and Protestants participated in the popular movement against the military dictatorship, between 1961 and 1987, while Confucianism and Buddhism promote obedience to the established authority. Also, Christianity is the religion of a personal God made man to save us, while shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism are not even religions, but systems of human wisdom and of life. Finally, after the war between North and South Korea (1950 to 1953), South Korea, thanks to American aid, saw extremely rapid economic, social, and civil development, becoming in every way an advanced and even rich country, in which the ancient religions do not provide answers to the problems of modern life.

One characteristic of the Korean Church is the excellent collaboration of the laity in evangelization. The Church was born in Korea from a few Korean philosophers and diplomats who emigrated, converted to Christianity in Beijing, and then, after returning home, propagated the faith and baptized. From 1779 to 1836, when the first French missionaries arrived, Christians spread and then the persecutions came, but the habit of collaborating with the Church has remained. Today in Korea, someone who converts knows that he must join one of the groups, associations, or movements of the parish. The "passive" Catholic is not recognized. In Seoul, where there are more than 200 parishes, I was in the parish of the Salesians of Kuro 3-Dong, in a working class area on the outskirts of the city. The Catholics, already in 1986, were 9,537 out of about 150,000 inhabitants, and there were almost 600 baptisms of adult converts each year.

The pastor, Fr. Paul Kim Bo Rok, told me: "In the parish we are two priests and four sisters, but the real work of mission and religious instruction is done by the laity, both in the eight courses of catechesis, taught at different times and by different people, and in the very active ecclesial movements, especially the Legion of Mary. Each year, we celebrate two or three rites of collective baptism of adults: each time the baptized are 200, 300, or even more, after about a year of catechumenate: that's not much, but we can't allow any more time because of the many requests for religious instruction. Deeper formation in the faith is given after Baptism, and is the task of the ecclesial movements. Becoming Christian means entering into a group that draws you in deeply, gives you norms of behavior and effort, gives you prayers to say every day. When one enters the Church one accepts everything. This is the Korean spirit: either you accept and commit yourself, or you don't accept and go away."

Fr. Paul continues: "In Korea, religion is something serious and demanding. It is true that there is the danger of formalism, but it is the entire culture of the people that is set up this way. Moreover, Christianity is the primary force that emphasizes the personal conscience and the freedom of the person. What are coming, instead, are threats opposite to formalism: secularism and practical materialism, which draw people away from the religious spirit. South Korea is seeing prodigious economic development, the poverty of thirty years ago has disappeared: today for us there is the passage to abundance and even to wealth. We must react with a deeper and more personal Christian formation. We are overwhelmed by the wave of conversions, and we are asking the Christian world at least for the aid of prayer."

Baptisms are generally administered at Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas. In the parish of Bang Rim Dong in Kwangiù, on Easter of 1986 I participated in the Mass and in the Baptism of 114 adults with their children. A celebration of the people, with a long procession of men and women, boys and girls, dressed in white to receive Baptism. Songs, music, so much joy. In the Korean Catholic Church, the program "Evangelization Twenty Twenty," the effort to convert 20 percent of South Koreans by 2020, is in full swing. They might not make it there, but the launch of this program in 2008 demonstrates of itself the enthusiastic faith of the baptized laity, because they are the driving force, and everyone knows it.

At Easter of this year, on Sunday, April 8, in Korea and in the world of the missions, tens of thousands of catechumens again entered the Church. Never be pessimistic about the future of Christianity and of the Catholic Church. We of the Old Continent are going through a crisis in our faith, but in the young Churches the action of the Holy Spirit is giving us an injection of hope and of Paschal joy.
 

Cardinal urges Catholics to wear a cross with pride

Christian workers in England have been disciplined for wearing crosses, but Cardinal O'Brien is determined that things will be different in Scotland.

United Kingdom:
Christians should wear a cross on their clothes every day as “a symbol of their beliefs”, according to the head of the Catholic church in Scotland. In his Easter Sunday homily, Cardinal Keith O’Brien called on Christians to make the cross “more prominent in their lives”.

Speaking at Edinburgh’s St Mary’s Cathedral , he told them to “wear proudly a symbol of the cross of Christ on their garments each and every day of their lives”.

“I know that many of you do wear such a cross of Christ, not in any ostentatious way, not in a way that might harm you at your work or recreation, but a simple indication that you value the role of Jesus Christ in the history of the world, that you are trying to live by Christ’s standards in your own daily life.”

Two women who say they were discriminated against when their employers barred them from wearing the symbol are fighting to get their cases heard at the European Court of Human Rights.

Nadia Eweida, 59, of Twickenham, south west London, was suspended by British Airways for breaching its uniform code in 2006.

Shirley Chaplin, 56, from Exeter, was barred from working on wards by Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust after refusing to hide the cross she wore on a necklace chain.

Cardinal O’Brien quoted Pope Benedict XVI, who said Christians “need to be free to act in accordance with their own principles.
 

Jewish Shroud Expert Teaches at Pontifical University

Photographer From '78 Scientific Examination Speaks of Proofs of Authenticity

By Andrew Dalton, LC

ROME, MARCH 22, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Barrie Schwortz was the Official Documenting Photographer for the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), the team that conducted the first in-depth scientific examination of the Shroud in 1978.

In this interview, Schwortz tells ZENIT how Shroud science has influenced his own faith.

ZENIT:  You just finished teaching a week-long course as part of the Diploma in Shroud Studies from the Science and Faith Institute of the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, in collaboration with Othonia and the International Center of Sindonology in Turin.  What has that experience meant for you?

Schwortz:  Probably the best part of the experience is the warm reception that I’m given by the faculty and students. That makes me feel that being here is very worthwhile.  The response from the students is always so positive.

Of course, being Jewish, it’s sort of ironic. The first time they asked me [to teach], I said, “So, how often do you bring Jews to teach future priests about the Shroud?” We all laughed about that.

It really is a great honor. For me, it makes the work that I’ve done with the Shroud over all these years really meaningful and not just for myself but obviously for the students. And when you are doing something that is of value to other people, that’s a great blessing in its own right.

ZENIT: How long did it take for you come accept the Shroud of Turin as the authentic one belonging to Jesus in the 1stcentury?

Schwortz: At the very beginning of my involvement with the Shroud, I was very skeptical about its authenticity. I had no emotional attachment to Jesus and the subject matter because I was raised as an Orthodox Jew.  The main thing I knew about Jesus in those days was that he also was Jewish, and that was about it.

Examining the Shroud, I knew quickly that it wasn’t a painting because when you are up close and you see it, you can tell it’s not a painting.  But as far as its authenticity, it took another 18 years after we finished our examination and all the papers were published.

I still wasn’t completely convinced until one of our fellow team members, Allen Adler, another Jewish man who was a blood chemist, explained to me why the blood remained red on the Shroud.  I felt that old blood was supposed to be black or brown. The blood on the Shroud is a red-crimson color. So that was a deal breaker for me for a long time. But ultimately, when that was explained to me and especially from my friend Al Adler, may he rest in peace, who also was involved in this not so much from a religious point of view as from a purely scientific point of view, he was the one who put the last piece of the puzzle in for me. It was a shock to me when I came to the conclusion after almost 20 years that this piece of cloth was authentic. And I got there based solely on the science.

ZENIT:  Regarding the argument for authenticity, do the results from the 1988 radiocarbon dating remain a thorn in the Shroud’s side?

Schwortz: It is the primary piece of evidence that points in the opposite direction, but of course I had the benefit by 1988 of having more than 10 years of study, and I knew about historical objects like the Hungarian Pray Codex that indicate this cloth was around much earlier than the earliest dates given by the carbon dating.

Now I’m not a physicist, so I didn’t necessarily understand why the radiocarbon dating was so skewed. It bothered me, and of course it was a huge setback because for the 10 years after we examined the cloth, the consensus publicly was, “This thing is probably real.” And then the carbon dating came out and it knocked it down. And from that point forward the world began to believe that it couldn’t be authentic.

This was frustrating for me because the evidence is so powerful in my mind that this has to be the real thing.  As Sherlock Holmes said, “eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

ZENIT:  What would you say is the message or meaning of the Shroud?

Schwortz: I always say, the Shroud did not come with a book of instructions, and consequently, the meaning isn’t on the cloth but in the eye and in the heart of the beholder. Each person has to regard it, study it or not, and make up his own mind.  It’s not the kind of thing that forces itself upon you, and I think that’s as it should be.  It will not push to open your heart.  You have to open your heart to it.

For me, once I came to the conclusion from the science that it was authentic, I came to understand how meaningful it is. This is like a forensic document of the Passion, and for Christians around the world this has got to be the most significant relic because it accurately documents everything that is told in the Gospels of what was done to Jesus.

I think that there’s plenty of evidence there to support the belief that this cloth wrapped the body of the historic Jesus.  It doesn’t speak to whether or not he was the Messiah. Again, that’s a test not so much for science but for faith.

ZENIT:  Was your progressive discovery of Shroud data accompanied by a journey of faith?

Schwortz: When I first got involved, I was ... well, I don’t have a label for it. I knew about God, but I didn’t really think about God.  I hadn’t thought about God since I was 13 and had my bar mitzvah, and there was really no real religious foundation for that. It was almost an obligation to my family.  It was very important to them, but for me it didn’t have much significance. I walked away from faith and religion and God, and I really didn’t look back until I was almost 50 years old.

Once I came to the conclusion that the Shroud was authentic, which was in 1995, I built shroud.com.  And in working with that and collecting this material and making it available to the public, I began to speak publically about the Shroud around 1996.  And as soon as I stood up and said, “I believe this is authentic,” the questions changed, and everyone asked me, “Well, what do you believe?” And they weren’t talking about the Shroud.  They were talking about faith in God.

For me this has always been about the truth and about being honest with people and making it available even if it doesn’t represent my personal beliefs. I think all Christians have the right to know that the evidence does point to its authenticity.

So when people started asking me what I believe, I didn’t have an answer. I was clueless to what I believed. I had not really regarded it in my life as an adult. It forced me to confront my beliefs for the first time.

And it didn’t take very long because I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home where God was part of everything every day, like Fiddler on the Roof.  So I came to the conclusion when I looked: God was there just patiently waiting for me to acknowledge him.  When I looked in my heart, he was there.  It was a shock.  I was really surprised to see that deep down inside I had this faith in a higher power, in God, all along.  It’s just that I had virtually ignored it through the first part of my adult life, and there at age 50, I suddenly came face to face with God in my own heart.

And so the Shroud, in essence, was the catalyst for that.  How many Jews can say the Shroud of Turin brought them back to their faith in God?  It’s had great significance in my own life not just from the obvious intellectual point of view but also from a spiritual point of view, in that it reconnected me with something that’s very important to me, and that’s my own faith in God.

ZENIT:  What future goals do you have for shroud.com?

Schwortz: About three years ago, back in 2009, I formed a non-profit organization.  I was concerned that, should something happen to me, the ownership of these materials would come into question.

I didn’t want to burden my son with trying to figure out what should be done with it, so I formed STERA, Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association. The primary function of STERA is to educate people through shroud.com, which just hit its 16th anniversary this year.

Some of the other STURP team members who have passed away have left to me their collections, so our biggest upcoming project is to raise the funds to digitally archive all their materials, and ultimately make those available through shroud.com.  Once archived and in one place, future researchers can have access to this material at no cost.

I think that the future of STERA is to continue that work even when I am gone.  I have a great board of directors, with many well-known Shroud scholars.  Hopefully this will make it very clear after I’m gone that the ownership is not in question.  It belongs to STERA:  the Web site, all of my photographs.  All of that has been legally transferred to STERA so that, if something happens to me, the people are in place who can carry the work forward.
 

Ash Wednesday not just for Catholics anymore

BY DAVID OLSON The Press Enterprise
Published: 21 February 2012 10:17 PM

Don’t assume every ash-marked forehead you see today belongs to a Catholic.
Ash Wednesday, long associated with Catholicism, is increasingly observed in Protestant churches.
The Rev. Joe DeRoulhac became senior minister of Redlands’ First Baptist Church in 1989 but didn’t preside over Ash Wednesday services there until 2003. The idea came from an interfaith Ash Wednesday event he participated in a year or two before.
DeRoulhac said there’s an increasing desire among Protestants to look anew at ancient Christian practices that previously were identified with Catholics.
“Part of this is retrieving from the past rituals that might help us today to fully experience the significance of our faith,” he said. “It’s our common heritage.”
As in the Roman Catholic Church, ashes are typically seen as signs of repentance and mortality, and Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the 40 days — except Sundays — leading up to Easter.
Even a small number of evangelical churches have begun holding Ash Wednesday services, said the Rev. Kurt Fredrickson, an associate dean at Fuller Theological Seminary, an evangelical institution in Pasadena.
Evangelicals historically have avoided practices viewed as Catholic, he said. Today, there’s general acceptance among evangelicals that Catholics are fellow Christians and they see less of a need to distance themselves from Catholics, he said.
Changes in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s helped reduce the sense of difference Protestants felt toward Catholics, said the Rev. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, a professor at Claremont School of Theology and an expert on Christian history. In addition, prejudice against Catholics has waned and interfaith dialogue has increased, she said.
Kujawa-Holbrook said the placement of ashes was rare through the five centuries after the Protestant Reformation until the past few decades, except among Anglicans, many of whom do not consider themselves Protestant.
The Anglican Communion, called the Episcopal Church in the United States, has similar rituals as the Roman Catholic Church and has observed Ash Wednesday since its 16{+t}{+h} Century beginnings.
The Rev. Bill Dunn said that when he presides over Ash Wednesday services at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Beaumont, he thinks of how his forebears did so throughout the centuries — and how similar rituals in other denominations illustrate how much Christians of different faith traditions have in common.
Ash Wednesday attendance at St. Stephen’s approaches that of Sunday worship, Dunn said. Many Catholic churches are jammed on Ash Wednesday, with special services and Masses scheduled throughout the day.
Yet in many Protestant congregations, the observance takes getting used to.
First Christian Church of Riverside, a Disciples of Christ congregation, has tried Ash Wednesday services a few times in the nearly three decades the Rev. Chris Nettles has been there but hasn’t had one in several years.
“Nobody comes out,” Nettles said. “You get 10, 15 people.”
Even at some Inland congregations that have held Ash Wednesday services continuously for years, the pews are usually only half or a quarter full, clergy say.
“This is something new and different for many people in our congregation,” said First Baptist’s DeRoulhac.
First Baptist member Wendy Peske, 33, didn’t grow up observing Ash Wednesday but she has made a point of attending the service with her husband and their now-3-year-old daughter.
“When we leave the service, our daughter is asking us, ‘What’s that on your head? What does that mean?’” Peske said. “It’s a good way of talking to her about Jesus and what he did for us.”
The Rev. Sharon Graff, pastor of Redlands United Church of Christ, said rituals draw congregants into a lesson in a way that words from the pulpit sometimes cannot. She sees the ashes as symbolic of the eternal soul as well as repentance.
“We ponder how it is that we are made of dirt, how it is we are made of the dust of the ground, but also infused with the spirit of God,” Graff said. “Yes, our bodies will decay, but we don’t decay.

India: Catholics Seen As Threat, Says Cardinal Alencherry

Written by: UCAN
 February 20, 2012
By Alessandro Speciale

Extremist groups in India see the growth of the Catholic Church as a “threat” and have successfully lobbied the government against Christians’ rights, the newly elevated Cardinal of the Syro-Malabar Church George Alencherry warned in an interview with ucanews.com in Rome.
Alencherry was among the 22 new cardinals created yesterday by Pope Benedict XVI in St Peter’s Basilica. Most of the new princes of the Church come from the Curia and from Europe. Only two – Alencherry and the bishop of Hong Kong, John Tong Hon – come from Asia.
In his homily, the pope warned the new cardinals that their duty is “serving God and others” and urged them to be “self-giving”, rejecting the “power and glory which belongs to this world.”
After weeks of document leaks inside the Vatican and rumors of power struggles, plots and even a possible resignation by the pontiff, Pope Benedict also asked cardinals to pray for him, that he “may continually offer to the people of God the witness of sound doctrine and to guide holy Church with a firm and humble hand.”
Speaking ahead of yesterday’s ceremony, Archbishop Alencherry said he looked at his entrance into the College of Cardinals – who will eventually be called to elect Pope Benedict’s successor – with a spirit of service.
“I am really searching what I can do for the Church, especially at the universal level.”
He said that though Christians in India are a small minority – Catholics account for only 1.9 percent of the population – their strong faith and their communion can send a strong message to the whole Church.
“The tradition is strong, the faithful are ready to pay any price for their being Catholic,” he said.
Archbishop Alencherry stressed that religious extremists are a small minority of India’s Hindus and Muslims, but they have been responsible for “atrocious attacks.” He also cautioned that political parties often pander to them in an effort to attract votes.
“You cannot say that Hinduism is intolerant. The vast majority of Hindus live with us in harmony and peace, and they even welcome Christianity in India.”
While India’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, sometimes the state protects extremists as “certain political parties” try to “exploit” religious tensions “to gain more votes” by giving “patronage to these groups”.
The new cardinal also called on the government to reverse its policy that denies preferential status to people from lower castes that convert to Christianity. According to Alencherry, the official reason for this is that “there is no caste difference in Christianity.”
But while it is true that “there is no inequality in the Christian community,” the archbishop noted that “economic inequality subsists.”
“My reading is that they are afraid that if people who embrace the Catholic faith and are from the so-called lower caste are given equal rights, there may be a flow of people into Christianity, and that would be a challenge for the majority community.”
Even if no one says it explicitly, Alencherry suggested that “behind the scenes” many see Christianity “as a threat to the majority religion, Hinduism.”

Half world’s 2.3 billion Christians are Catholic: New survey
 

World's Christian population, from the respected Pew Forum

The world’s largest Christian population is in the United States. One-third of the world’s Christians live in the Americas, North and South. The Middle East, home of Christianity, is now only four-per-cent Christian. Half the world’s Christians are Roman Catholics.
Those are some of the findings of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, arguably the world’s best religion pollster. It came out today, just before Christmas, with the most extensive data ever on the world’s Christian population. I will follow up on it later, but in the meantime here are key findings.

 
 

Highlights:
- There are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages in more than 200 countries around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 6.9 billion 2010 global population.
- In 1910, two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe. Today, only about a quarter of all Christians  live in Europe (26%).
- In the last 100 years, the number of Christians around the world has more than tripled from historical estimates of approximately 600 million in 1910 to more than two billion today… Still, because of rising world populations, Christians make up about the same portion of the world’s population in 2010 (32%) as they did a century ago (35%).
- Christians are diverse theologically as well as geographically. About half are Catholic. Protestants, broadly defined, make up 37%. Orthodox Christians comprise 12% of Christians worldwide.
- Taken as a whole Christians are by far the world’s largest religious group. Muslims, the second-largest group, make up a little less than a quarter of the world’s population.
- Almost half (48%) of all Christians live in the 10 countries with the largest number of Christians. Three of the top 10 are in the Americas (the United States, Brazil and Mexico). Two are in Europe (Russia and Germany); two are in the Asia-Pacific region (the Philippines and China); and three are in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia), reflecting Christianity’s global reach.
- Nigeria now has more than twice as many Protestants (broadly defined to include Anglicans and independent churches) as Germany, the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation.

The full report, which includes a companion quiz, interactive maps and sortable data tables, is available on the Pew Forum’s website.

The happiness of believing

Europeans who belong to a religion report higher levels of happiness than those who do not.

Do religious belief and practice affect the happiness of Europeans? In the first part of this two-part article, to answer our question we focused on the European Values Study. In this second part we deal with results from the European Social Survey.

For an empirical analysis of the effect of religion on happiness, we use data from three waves (2002/2003, 2004 and 2006) of the European Social Survey (ESS) covering 114,019 individuals in 24 different countries. These provide information on personal characteristics such as gender, age, income, subjective general health, marital status, main activity, number of children and the educational level of each individual, among other things.
As indicators of religion, we have two groups of variables. A first group, about “religious belief”, considers questions such as: “Do you belong to a particular religion?” (yes or no), “What religion or denomination do you belong to?” (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Other Christian denomination, Jewish, Islam, Eastern religions, Other non-Christian religions), and “How religious are you?” (on a scale from 0, “not at all religious” to 9, “very religious”).
The second group proxies for “religious practice” and consists of the queries: “How often do you attend religious services, apart from special occasions?” and “How often do you pray, apart from religious services?”, with responses ranging from “every day”, “more than once a week”, “once a week”, “at least once a month”, “only on special holy days”, “less often”, to “never”. As with most studies on economics and happiness, we make use of the question, “How happy are you?”, to which the respondent answers on a scale from 1, which stands for “not happy at all”, to 10, which stands for “completely happy”.
On average, happiness among the 24 European countries is 7.26, but with great differences ranging from 5.54 for Ukraine to 8.32 for Denmark. We also find significant differences in the religion variables. The countries with the lowest proportion of individuals belonging to a particular religion are Estonia and the Czech Republic, while those with the highest proportion are Greece, Poland, Portugal and Ireland. Similarly, there is evidence of differences between “religious belief” and “religious practice” variables. For example, the proportion of people belonging to a religion in Spain is 74 per cent (12 points above the mean average), although individuals attending services and praying report a mean lower than the European average.

Religion and happiness are correlated

When we ran statistical tests looking for correlations between happiness and religion variables, the main results were as follows:
1. There is a significant effect of belonging to a religion on happiness. Those who belong to a religion report higher levels of happiness than those who do not.
2. The religion or denomination has a significant effect on happiness. Protestants, other Christian religions and Roman Catholics report higher happiness levels whereas Orthodox and Eastern religions report the lowest.
3. There seems to be a positive relationship between how religious a person is and happiness: the more religious, the happier. However, those who consider themselves “not at all religious” (0) have comparable levels of happiness to those who give themselves a 5 in the scale of religiosity.
4. Frequency of attendance at services is likewise positively correlated with happiness: those who attend religious services every day say they are happier than those who never attend.
5. Frequency of prayer is positively correlated with happiness, with those who pray every day reporting higher levels of happiness than those who never pray.
6. Frequency of attendance in services is a more relevant variable than frequency of prayer in the self-reported happiness levels.

Explaining the religion-happiness link

From the perspective of the psychology of religion, Nielsen (1998) provides three possible explanations for the positive link between religion and happiness.

The first refers to the social support. People are happier when they find themselves in a supportive environment and religion offers this. That could explain why the beneficial influence of religion on happiness is strongest among people who need support the most, such as the elderly, the sick and those who are single. Moreover, religion allows people to feel themselves closer to God, also viewed as a source of support. Economics literature expresses this same idea, inasmuch as religion could serve as insurance during negative shocks (Chen 2003) and a source of both direct (education) and indirect social benefits (health, work) (Glaeser et al. 2000, Finke and Stark 1998).

Secondly, people with firm beliefs, those who have a sense of what is important and an orientation in life, tend to be happier (Ellison 1991). Religion supplies people with such beliefs. This aspect of religion may have to do with the greater membership success of conservative churches (Kelley 1972). Although stricter and more demanding in morals and practice, they offer greater certitude in beliefs.

Thirdly, religion itself may contribute to happiness by triggering positive experiences, such as a feeling of being in contact with God (transcendence) or with others (Pollner 1989).

How do these explanations from the psychology of religion test with the statistical findings set out above? They undoubtedly support (1) “Those who belong to a religion report higher levels of happiness than those who do not”, (3) “The more religious a person, the happier”, (4) “The frequency of attendance at services is positively correlated with happiness” and (5) “The frequency of prayer is positively correlated with happiness”. But we do not find them helpful in explaining (2) “The religion or denomination to which the individual belongs has a significant effect on happiness” and (6) “Frequency of attendance in services is a more relevant variable than frequency of prayer in the self-reported happiness levels”.

Regarding (2), which refers to the varying correlations between particular religions or denominations and self-reported happiness, the psychology of religion seems to imply that Protestant religions provide greater social support, firmer beliefs and more positive religious experiences –or any combination of the three— than Eastern Orthodox religions, for example. However, we do not have evidence for this. The lumping together of various Protestant religions, other Christian religions and Eastern Orthodox churches does not allow us to calibrate the social support, firm beliefs and religious experiences associated with each.

Neither do we have a straightforward explanation for (6), which suggests that frequency of attendance at services is more significant than frequency of prayer for happiness. Certainly, attendance at services could provide more social support than prayer, which could be done individually. But attendance at religious services does not necessarily imply firmer beliefs nor more positive religious experiences. (Some religions may just emphasize private prayer more than community worship.) We do not know, nor can we tell with the available data. We would have to tease out the individual effects of social support, firm beliefs and religious experience from their cumulative effect on happiness, for attendance at services and for prayer. But again that is not possible with the available information.

Insights from the sociology of religion

Furthermore, there are other dimensions to both religious belief and practice than those considered by the ESS. Here is where inputs from the sociology of religion come in handy. The sociology of religion offers insights to better understand the underlying notions of religious belief and practice and the tensions between them. It also sheds light on the relationship between the individual and the group through mediating institutions such as the Church, the State and the market.

What could be meant by “religious belief” in this context? Starting out with the British experience (Davie 1994), and later on extending it to the rest of Europe and America (Berger et al. 2008), Davie suggests that “religious belief” mainly refers to feelings, experiences and the numinous, as could be associated with the New Age movement, for example. It does not refer to creedal statements with precise and specific contents. It is a profession in an “ordinary God” (Abercrombie et al. 1970), not a God “who can change the course of heaven and earth” (Davie 1994: 1). Philosophically, this corresponds to the God of deism: one who, after creation, soon left human beings to their own devices. Although nominally Christian, belief here represents a non-institutional religiosity; it is belief that has been privatized, becoming invisible and implicit. It also goes under the names of “popular”, “common”, “customary”, “folk”, “civic” or “civil religion”. Rather than the absence of belief, it is an individually customized patchwork of beliefs. Therefore, apart from the categories of belief and unbelief, the degrees of religiosity and institutional religions, it would be interesting to look into the range of non-institutional religiosity and test it against happiness.

And how are we to understand “religious practice”? Again, for Davie (1994) and colleagues (Berger et al. 2008), this “belonging” covers a wide range of behaviors, from religious orthodoxy to ritual participation and an instrumental attachment to religion. They fall under what she calls “vicarious religion”, meaning that although an individual does not want to be personally involved with a church, he nonetheless wants the church to be there for other people or society as a whole (Berger et al. 2008: 15) as seen, for instance, in the role of churches in expressing national grief or mourning. Therefore, besides data for frequency of attendance at services and prayer, there are other forms of religious practice such as “vicarious religion” that can be analyzed in relation to happiness.

Lastly, there are two basic models that relate the individual to the group in the religious sphere: the traditional, historic or established church and the church as a voluntary association in the faith market (Berger et al. 2008: 16-7). The first is dominant in Europe, whereas the second exists mainly in the United States. The traditional church, much like the State, exercises a monopoly over the faithful who do not belong to it by choice, but by default or obligation. In many countries, this is the “national church” understood as a ministry of the State. The church which arises through voluntary adherence, on the other hand, follows the market model. In lieu of an established church is a market where various churches compete. In some cases, however, the same faith group may adopt the traditional mode in one place and the voluntary mode in another, as with the Catholic Church in Europe and in the US, for instance. In general, the decline in religious belief and practice or “secularization” has affected traditional churches more than churches of voluntary adherence.

We think that the status of religion –whether traditional or voluntary— affects not only the levels of belief and practice, but also the level of happiness. Countries with the traditional model of religion will have lower levels of religious belief and practice than those with the voluntary model due to the latter’s internal “locus of control”. It is also probable that followers of voluntary religion will report higher levels of happiness than those of traditional religion. But again, unfortunately, this cannot be confirmed with the available data.

As a final remark, despite positive correlations obtained between religious belief and practice, on the one hand, and happiness, on the other, results would have to be nuanced by a better understanding of both religious belief and practice. For some religions, belief cannot be separated that easily from belonging or practice and vice-versa. It could also very well be the case that religion is more than just a means for achieving happiness through the satisfaction of psychological needs.

Alejo José G. Sison and Juncal Cuñado teach at the University of Navarra, in Pamplona, Spain.

References
Abercrombie, N, Baker, J., Brett, S. and Foster, J. (1970): “Superstition and religion: the God of the gaps”. In D. Martin and M. Hill (eds.), A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, 3, London: SCM, 91-129.
Berger, P., Davie, G. and Fokas, E. (2008): Religious America, Secular Europe?: A Theme and Variations, Aldershot & Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Chen, C.W.S., Chiang, T.C. and So, M.K.P. (2003), “Asymmetrical reaction to US stock-return news: evidence from major stock markets based on a double-threshold model”, Journal of Economics and Business, 55, 5-6, 487-502.
Davie, G. (1994): Religion in Britain since 1945. Believing without Belonging. Oxford, U.K & Cambridge, U.S.A.: Blackwell.
Ellison, C.G. (1991): “Religious involvement and subjective well-being”, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 32, 80-99.
European Values Study (2005): http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/evs/research/themes/religion/ (accessed 20 November 2010).
Finke, R. and Stark, R. (1998): “Religious Choice and Competition”, American Sociological Review, 63 (5), 761-766.
Glaeser, E., Laibson, D., Scheinkman, J. and Soutter, C. (2000): “Measuring trust’”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 65 (3), 811–46.
Kelley, M.W. (1972): Why Conservative Churches are Growing. New York: Harper & Row.
Nielsen, M.E. (1998): “An assessment of religious conflicts and their resolutions”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37, 181-190.
Pollner, M. (1989): “Divine relations, social relations, and well-being”, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 30, 92-104.

Explorers Say They've Found Pieces of Noah's Ark

video here http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/December/Explorers-Say-Theyve-Found-Pieces-of-Noahs-Ark/

It's perhaps one of the most told stories in the Bible
Cartoon sketches of Noah's ark fill children's books, and Hollywood even produced a modern-day adaptation in "Evan Almighty."
Now, a group of scientists say they've found parts of the biblical ark.
Daniel McGivern and his team claimed to have discovered two large sections of Noah's ark resting just below surface atop Mount Ararat in Turkey -- where the Bible says the ark came to rest.
"The mountain is treeless. The mountain is volcanic with gases. There is no conceivable way that you could have an object that big on a mountain," McGivern said.
The team used military satellite imagery and ground penetrating radar technology to locate the ruins. They believe the large object is wooden.
"The evidence is overwhelming," McGivern added. "This is the large piece from Noah's ark."
His evidence is based solely on imaging technology.
The large piece of wood will likely remain buried under ice.
"There's a huge problem with getting down to it, because of the fact that you can't melt the ice," McGivern explained. "You are up there at 16,600 feet. How are you going to get down to it?"
For centuries, explores have searched Mount Ararat for the ark.
Just last year, a Chinese team claimed to have found the historical boat -- releasing a video showing men inside what appeared to be ancient wooden structures.
The video and find was widely believed to be a hoax.
McGivern's claim may never have the hard evidence to back it up, but the discovery could provide a great opportunity to share the gospel.

UK is a Christian nation, Cameron emphasizes

December 20, 2011
In a speech commemorating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, Prime Minister David Cameron emphasized that the United Kingdom is a Christian nation.
“We are a Christian country,” he said. “And we should not be afraid to say so … what I am saying is that the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today. Values and morals we should actively stand up and defend. The alternative of moral neutrality should not be an option. You can’t fight something with nothing. Because if we don’t stand for something, we can’t stand against anything.”

 “Those who oppose this usually make the case for secular neutrality,” he added. “They argue that by saying we are a Christian country and standing up for Christian values we are somehow doing down other faiths. And that the only way not to offend people is not to pass judgment on their behavior. I think these arguments are profoundly wrong. And being clear on this is absolutely fundamental to who we are as a people, what we stand for, and the kind of society we want to build.”

 In an apparent swipe at Catholic teaching on women’s ordination, Cameron, an Anglican, said that the Bible has been “at the forefront of the emergence of democracy, the abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of women--even if not every church has always got the point.”
 

Family values remain strong in a changing world

Values remain strong in a changing world

Gobal data shows majority support for the traditional family, despite some erosion.

In the last section of the Sustainable Demographic Development report Laurie deRose surveys global statistical evidence on international family strcuture, children’s trends, family culture, and family economic wellbeing. Here MercatorNet reproduces his findings on family culture, which are generally positive. The third and last in this series.

KEY FINDINGS: Throughout the world, support for the institution of the family is strong. In every country examined except Sweden, men and women agree that a child needs a mother and father to grow up happily. In all 29 countries, a majority of adults believes marriage is still relevant and that an additional emphasis on family life would be a good thing. Nevertheless, support for marital permanence is weaker, with adults in many countries taking a relatively permissive stance toward divorce.

Marriage is a near-universal institution around the globe. The meaning of marriage, however, varies from country to country and has changed across time. In many places around the world, marriage has become about love and companionship—a stark contrast to pre-Industrial Revolution marriages that were to a large degree about economic survival. Still, marriage continues to be viewed by many as the “gold standard” in relationships, as the optimal arrangement for childrearing, and as a relationship that should not easily be terminated. Precisely how many hold these views around the world is not clear.

To shed light on adults’ attitudes toward marriage and family life around the world, we present data from the World Values Survey, collected between 1999 and 2007, on four cultural indicators in 29 countries: (1) agreement that a child needs a home with a mother and father to grow up happily, (2) disagreement that marriage is an outdated institution, (3) agreement that more societal emphasis on family life would be a good thing, and (4) opinions about how justified divorce is. Because the World Values Survey has been collected since the early 1980s in many of the 29 countries of interest, we are also able to paint a portrait of changes in family culture over the last 25 years or so.

Do children need a mother and a father?

The vast majority of adults around the world believe a child needs to be raised in a home with both a mother and a father in order to grow up happily (see Table 3 and Figure 4). This sentiment is strong in South America; more than 75 percent of adults in Argentina (88 percent), Chile (76 percent), Colombia (86 percent), and Peru (93 percent) believe a two-parent home is necessary for a happy childhood. North Americans are less likely to agree to this idea, but still 63 percent of U.S. adults and 65 percent of Canadians affirm the mother-father household as optimal for raising happy children.

Agreement with the mother-father family ideal is even stronger in Europe than in the Americas, with the sole exception of Sweden. There, only 47 percent of adults agree that a child needs to be raised by a mother and father to be happy. Notably, Sweden is the only country in the world where a minority agrees with this sentiment. Agreement with a mother-father ideal exceeds 90 percent in Italy (93 percent) and Poland (95 percent) and 80 percent in France (86 percent) and Germany (88 percent). More than three-quarters (78 percent) of Spaniards view this family arrangement as best for children, as do two-thirds (67 percent) of British adults.

Support for the mother-father family type is nearly unanimous in the Middle Eastern and African countries: Egypt (99 percent), Saudi Arabia (95 percent), Nigeria (97 percent), and South Africa (91 percent). Asian support for children being raised by a mother and father is also strong. Most of the Asian countries profiled exceed 90 percent agreement: China (97 percent), India (90 percent), Malaysia (92 percent), Philippines (97 percent), and South Korea (92 percent); and the remainder exceed 80 percent: Indonesia (81 percent), Japan (89 percent), and Taiwan (87 percent). Australians (70 percent) and New Zealanders (68 percent) express less agreement, resembling Americans, Canadians, and British attitudes on this issue.

There is not clear evidence that this attitude is changing drastically over time in one particular direction.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT: www.sustaindemographicdividend.org/e-ppendix.

In most cases, support for a mother-father family type has remained relatively stable, or has fluctuated in a nonlinear fashion. Two notable exceptions to this are Chile, which saw agreement with this statement drop from 93 percent in 1990 to 76 percent in 2006; and Sweden, which fell from 71 percent agreement in 1982 to 47 percent in 2006. South African support for the mother- father family ideal may have even grown from 83 percent in 1982 to 91 percent in 2006.

Marriage an outdated institution?

Like agreement that children need a mother and father to be happy, the overwhelming majority of adults around the world disagree that marriage is outdated (see Table 3). In none of the 29 countries did fewer than 64 percent of adults (France) feel this way. Between 70 and 80 percent of adults in most American countries disagree marriage is outdated: Argentina (70 percent), Canada (78 percent), Chile (72 percent), Colombia (75 percent), Mexico (71 percent), and Peru (80 percent). The United States stands out a bit from its neighbors, with 87 percent disagreeing marriage is outdated.

European support for marriage as a relevant institution is similarly strong in most countries. French (64 percent) and Spanish (67 percent) adults are the least likely to disagree marriage is outdated, but support for marriage as an institution exceeds 70 percent in Germany (78 percent), Sweden (78 percent), and the United Kingdom (74 percent). More than 80 percent believe marriage remains relevant in Italy (81 percent), and support for marriage surpasses 90 percent in Poland (91 percent).

Belief in marriage’s relevance is even stronger—these data suggest—in most other parts of the world. The two Middle Eastern countries examined here exhibit strong support for the institution of marriage: Egypt (96 percent) and Saudi Arabia (83 percent). In Africa, 85 percent of Nigerians believe marriage is not outdated; a relatively low (but still high in absolute terms) percentage of South Africans (77 percent) feel the same way. Marriage receives high levels of support throughout Asia and Oceania as well: China (88 percent), India (80 percent), Indonesia (96 percent), Japan (94 percent), Malaysia (86 percent), Philippines (83 percent), South Korea (87 percent), Taiwan (89 percent), Australia (82 percent), and New Zealand (85 percent).

There is some evidence of a decline in this attitude around the world, though it is clearly not universal and not precipitous. Double-digit declines in support for marriage occurred in Chile from 1990 to 2006 (85 percent to 72 percent), in Mexico from 1981 to 2005 (81 percent to 71 percent), in Great Britain from 1981 to 1999 (86 percent to 74 percent), and in India from 1990 to 2006 (95 percent to 80 percent).

For more information visit sustaineddemographicdividend.org/e-ppendix

Double-digit increases, however, took place in Japan (76 percent to 94 percent). Still, decline in support for marriage seems to be the more common trend, as modest declines in support for the institution can be seen in many of the other countries examined here.

More emphasis on Family Life a Good Thing?

Around the world, adults overwhelmingly believe that family life deserves more emphasis (Table 3). When asked whether more emphasis on family life would be a good thing, a bad thing, or something they wouldn’t mind, vast majorities report that this would be a good thing. In most countries in the Americas, 90 percent or more believe additional emphasis on family life would be a good thing: Argentina (94 percent), Canada (95 percent), Chile (90 percent), Colombia (99 percent), Mexico (97 percent), and Peru (96 percent). Desire for more emphasis on family is 88 percent in the United States.

European desire for a greater focus on family life is also strong. Swedes are the least likely Europeans to report such a development would be a good thing, but even 81 percent of Swedish adults believe it would be good. Additional family emphasis would clearly be welcomed by most in France (93 percent), Germany (87 percent), Great Britain (93 percent), Italy (93 percent), Poland (94 percent), and Spain (92 percent).

Throughout the Middle East [Egypt (96 percent) and Saudi Arabia (90 percent)] and Africa [Nigeria (94 percent) and South Africa (86 percent)], adults view positively an added emphasis on family life. Asians would also welcome this added focus, although India (75 percent) and Malaysia (78 percent) less so than other countries [China (92 percent), Indonesia (87 percent), Japan (87 percent), Philippines (92 percent), South Korea (89 percent), and Taiwan (97 percent)]. In Oceania, too, a heightened focus on family life would be embraced by most [Australia (90 percent) and New Zealand (92 percent)].

If anything, the desire for added emphasis on family life appears to be growing around the world. Relatively large increases in this attitude can be seen in Mexico (9 percentage points from 1981 to 2005), Great Britain (9 percentage points from 1981 to 2006), Spain (8 percentage points from 1981 to 2007), China (18 percentage points from 1990 to 2007), and Japan (7 percentage points from 1981 to 2005).

For more information visit sustaineddemographicdividend.org/e-ppendix

Some countries have witnessed declines in this sentiment, however, including Chile (7 percentage points from 1990 to 2006) and the United States (7 percentage points from 1982 to 2006).

Divorce attitudes

While support for mother-father families, marriage, and family life in general is strong around the world, attitudes toward divorce vary widely by region (see Table 3). On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being permissive and 10 being restrictive, countries range from the very permissive (Sweden, 2.6) to the very restrictive (Nigeria, 8.5). In the Americas, the countries with the most conservative attitudes about divorce are Peru (7.2) and Colombia (6.3). All other American countries fall below the scale midpoint of 5.5: Argentina (4.5), Canada (5.1), Chile (5.0), Mexico (5.7), and the United States (5.2).

The European countries range from moderate to permissive in their divorce attitudes, with Poland (6.3) and Italy (6.0) being the most restrictive. Swedish adults (2.6) believe divorce is almost always justifiable. Spain (3.9), France (4.1), Germany (4.3), and Great Britain (4.6) are also quite permissive.

The Middle East, Africa, and Asia have the most conservative attitudes toward divorce, though even here the numbers are not always extreme. Egypt (6.0) and Saudi Arabia (6.4) are fairly moderate in their stance on divorce. Nigeria (8.5) is the most conservative nation on this attitude, and South Africa (7.1) is also relatively restrictive. Asian countries vary somewhat widely in their attitudes, ranging from Japan at 4.6 to China at 8.3. In between these extremes are moderate countries like South Korea (6.4) and Taiwan (6.3), and somewhat more conservative countries like India (7.1), Indonesia (8.0), Malaysia (7.4), and the Philippines (7.8).

Oceania, like Europe, is fairly permissive when it comes to divorce. Both Australia and New Zealand have average scores of 4.3, indicating divorce is justifiable more often than not.

There is a clear pattern of liberalization of divorce attitudes in the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. With the exceptions of Colombia, Peru, and Italy, countries in these regions have become more permissive in their divorce attitudes.

For more information visit sustaineddemographicdividend.org/e-ppendix

We do not have longitudinal data for the Middle East, but in Nigeria divorce attitudes appear to have become more conservative, and attitudes have been generally consistent across time in South Africa. China has seen attitudes become more restrictive—especially since 1995—but other Asian countries, specifically India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, have become more permissive in their attitudes about divorce. So too have Australia and New Zealand.

Conclusions

Taken together, these findings suggest that in most countries around the world, adults have relatively traditional family attitudes. They believe children need to be raised by a mother and father to grow up happily. They endorse marriage as an institution, and they wish that there were more emphasis placed on family life. Nevertheless, they hold relatively permissive attitudes toward divorce. This suggests that in many places around the world, adults are wrestling with the meaning of marriage and what an ideal family should look like. On the one hand, they value the institution and its childrearing benefits; on the other hand, they are more open to an individualistic understanding of marriage that allows for the termination of the relationship under many circumstances.

While these are the dominant patterns, there are clearly variations in family culture around the world. North America, Oceania, and Scandinavia generally take a more laissez-faire view of family matters, whereas Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America embrace a more familistic view of things. These differences can be attributed to variations in religiosity, economic development, political culture, and the relative importance of community vis-à-vis the individual in these different regions of the world.
 

Motherhood at a Price
IVF Is Proving Perilous

By Father John Flynn, LC

ROME, OCT. 28, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Even as in vitro fertilization treatments are being sought by growing numbers of women, more and more evidence is surfacing to confirm the downsides of its use.
Canadian doctor John Barrett described what he termed an "epidemic of multiple births, largely as a result of IVF," the National Post newspaper reported Sept. 22.

"What the IVF industry is doing is creating a population of sick babies ... that is impacting all society," he said. The number of multiple births in Canada increased by 45% to almost 12,000 a year in the period 1991 to 2008, according to the article, citing data from Statistics Canada.In a further article on IVF on Sept. 26 the National Post reported that it is linked to rare genetic disorders. Addressing a conference on fertility Dr. Rosanna Weksberg said that babies born as a result of IVF are up to 10 times more likely to have genetic problems. While she affirmed her support for the use of IVF, Weskberg also said she is seeing many IVF children with rare disorders. She added there is evidence that IVF babies are more likely to be born at a low weight.The cause of this increased risk of genetic problems is unknown, but according to Weksberg it could well be a combination of the infertility problems of the parents, together with the fertility treatments themselves. In cases where outside donors are involved, other problems for IVF children can come about due to their lack of knowledge of any medical issues of their biological parent.

Sickness

In Australia a television station recently ran a story about a woman conceived using donor sperm, who now has inheritable bowel cancer, which was not from her mother.
According to a report published Sept.5 by the British BioNews service, the woman cannot obtain any information about her father, nor can she contact the other eight half-siblings, due to the fact that at the time of their conception the identity of donors was kept secret.
A number of Australian states have now changed the law to require donors to consent to the release of their information, but the change is not retrospective.
A similar problem was reported by American ABC News on July 21. Rebecca Blackwell and her 15-year-old son Tyler were trying to track down his sperm donor father and while he did not respond to their requests for information his sister did tell them that her brother had an inheritable aortic heart defect. They also found out that Tyler had inherited this condition, which could kill him without warning. He later had an operation, but faces the need for continual monitoring for the rest of his life.

Tyler's father donated sperm at three clinics, fathering at least 24 children. He did not tell any of them about his health problems, which also include Marfan's syndrome, a tissue disorder.
Other negative consequences come about when a donor's sperm has been used very frequently. The concern is that some of the children, ignorant of who their father is, could enter into an incestuous relationship. One British sperm donor has fathered children in 17 families, the Sunday Times reported, Sept. 18. Official guidelines put a limit at 10, but the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has admitted there have been other breaches as well. Moreover, they also don't know how many times the rules have been broken. "There is a real danger in a small country like the UK for donor-conceived children to meet up unknowingly with half-siblings," said Josephine Quintavalle, of the Comment on Reproductive Ethics.  While the United States is a lot bigger than England the problem of multiple IVF offspring from the same donor is significant.
One notable case highlighted in a report published Sept. 5 by the New York Times told of a man who has up to now fathered 150 children. While this is an extreme example the article said that there are many other cases of donors fathering 50 or more children.
"We have more rules that go into place when you buy a used car than when you buy sperm," said Debora L. Spar, author of "The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception."
According to the New York Times there is no certain data on how many children are born involving the use of sperm donors. There are various estimates, however, ranging from 30,000 to 60,000.

Complications

It's not just the babies who are at risk. An analysis of existing studies found that women who undergo IVF have a higher risk, as much as 40% in some cases, of a serious complication during pregnancy, London's Telegraph newspaper reported Oct. 20.
It is thought that the process involving the initial development of the embryo outside the mother's body leads to a poor development of the placenta later on. Another cause is that the women tend to be older and to have health problems.
Some IVF treatments involve the donation of ova from another woman. Concern was recently expressed that the large number of ova being taken from some donors puts them at risk, the Sunday Times reported Oct. 23.
In addition to problems such as mood swings, headaches and tiredness, the hormones injected into donors can lead to a condition called ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, causing blood clots and kidney damage and even death in some cases.
Data from the HFEA show that in one case as many as 85 ova were taken from one donor. Others had large numbers removed, from 50 up to 70. These worries come at a time when fertility authority has increased -- from £250 to £750 ($400 to $1,200) -- the amount an ova donor can be paid, the Independent newspaper reported, Oct. 20. The move came as clinics suffer from a shortage of donors. In part this came about due to donor anonymity being removed in 2005.  "This is a disgraceful decision that puts young women's health at risk," declared David King, director of Human Genetics Alert. A £750 payment is a strong incentive to university students who are struggling to pay their fees, he said.  Apart from health risks the clinics sometimes make mistakes, which are on the rise in Britain, according to an Aug. 13 article published by the Daily Mail.

Figures from the HFEA reveal that 564 serious errors or near misses occurred at clinics in Britain in 2010. This is three times the 2007 number. The mistakes include injecting the wrong sperm into an ova, embryos accidentally being destroyed, and the wrong embryos being implanted into women. There has only been a slight increase in the number of IVF treatments in recent years, so the sharp increase in mistakes is not due to higher numbers of cases. Earlier, in a July 22 article, the Daily Mail reported that hundreds of thousands of embryos are thrown away by clinics. More than 30 human embryos are created for every successful birth by IVF, according to figures published by the Department of Health. The information revealed that since 1991 more than 3 million embryos have been created by IVF, with fewer than 100,000 births resulting. According to the Daily Mail around 1.5 million were discarded in the course of treatment and more than 100,000 were given for research in destructive experiments. The opposition of the Catholic Church to the use of IVF is well known, but you don't have to be a Catholic to be very concerned over the immense human cost involved in these procedures.
 

Italian Priest Shot Dead in Southern Philippines
An Italian Catholic priest who was about to travel to a clergy meeting was shot dead Monday in his remote southern Philippine parish, police said.

The Rev. Fausto Tentorio was approaching his car when a gunman shot him several times within the church compound in North Cotabato province's mountainous Arakan township, said Chief Inspector Benjamin Rioflorido. Tentorio, a native of Santa Maria Hoe town in Italy's Lecco province, was dead on arrival at hospital. He was 59. Rioflorido said that according to a witness, the gunman ran from the scene after the shooting and fled toward an adjacent town on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice.

Investigators have not yet identified suspects or possible motives, Rioflorido said in a telephone interview. He said Tentorio had been a longtime parish priest in Arakan, spoke the dialect fluently and had good ties with the people there.
The priest had been about to travel to the provincial capital, Kidapawan city, to attend a clergy meeting of his diocese. Kidapawan Bishop Romulo dela Cruz strongly denounced the killing and called on the police and military to solve the killing quickly.

Tentorio belonged to the Rome-based Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions. PIME said he had worked with indigenous people in the south for more than 30 years and was the third PIME missionary to be killed on southern Mindanao Island, the homeland of minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic country. The resource-rich but impoverished region has seen Muslim rebellions for decades. "We are very sad because we lost already two other priests here in Mindanao," Rev. Julio Mariani, director of PIME's Euntes Mission Center in Zamboanga City, told The Associated Press.
Mariani said Tentorio received unspecified death threats around seven years ago, but had not mentioned new threats when they last met in July. He said Tentorio's killing could have been related to his work defending the rights of indigenous people and helping them hold on to their ancestral land.

"It was a delicate mission because when you deal with the marginalized and the poor, you are bound to step on the toes of some people and this could have been the source of the problem of why he was killed," Mariani added-
Rioflorido said they did not know of any death threats received by Tentorio. He said police would interview Tentorio's colleagues and other possible witnesses including teachers at a preschool within the church compound who were attending a flag-raising ceremony when the attack took place. Italian Ambassador Luca Fornari condemned the killing and expressed shock, sadness and dismay. "Killing someone who is doing good things is something that we cannot understand," he added.

He said the embassy has asked police to increase security for missionaries. Italy has warned its nationals, including priests, not to go to Mindanao, but missionaries have disregarded the advisory in order to help people, Fornari said. Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario called on police "to immediately bring the perpetrators of this dastardly act to justice" and offered condolences to Tentorio's family and congregation.
 

The Aramaic language is being resurrected in Israel
Two television channels have been involved in initiatives to bring to life, once again, the language that Jesus and his contemporaries spoke. Today, it is spoken by 400 thousand people throughout the world
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KeTwo Israeli television channels are trying to see to it that Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus and his contemporaries in that region of the Roman Empire, will once again become a living language and not just be an almost extinct curiosity for scholars of Semitic languages to study. “Suroyo TV” and “Suryoyo TV” offer an endless supply of material for online discussion by fans so they can decide which is best. Among nouns that have the same meaning, there are variations of the term “Syriac” in Aramaic. The aficionados live in the Haifa zone, in Upper Galilee. There are probably others, but living in Syria, in the mountains south of Damascus, and in the small city of Maalula. It seems, however, that it is quite difficult for the latter to connect to the two Israeli channels.

These two channels are nevertheless still valuable: they prove that Aramaic is still living and breathing as a language, according to the inhabitants of Jish, one of the villages in the area. Aramaic is a Semitic language that is very close to Hebrew, and was once spread over the Fertile Crescent, the wide strip of Middle Eastern land that had its center between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but whose cultural and linguistic borders stretch all the way to the Mediterranean. Over the centuries, the use of Aramaic gradually dried up and was replaced by the Arab language of conquerors who came up from the south; and today it is the language of choice for Christians in the Middle East, particularly when in terms of liturgical use. It is even studied by experts on the Talmud.
 

Aramaic was actually—and a bit hastily—given up for dead until scholars became aware that a number of Aramaic dialects were spoken by communities in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. And those are not the only examples; to a lesser extent, they are also spoken in Lebanon, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Israel. In the western world, the Aramaic diaspora is very much alive and evident in the United States and Sweden; and as often occurs, these “exiles” actually seem more active and interested in revitalizing the language. It is believed that close to 400 thousand people throughout the world understand and speak different nuances of the Aramaic language.

 In Israel, the battle to turn Aramaic back into a living language has been carried forward by two brothers, Amir and Shady Khallul. They use Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the father of modern Hebrew, as their model. If Jewish people are in a position to revive Hebrew and turn it into a modern language, why shouldn’t we do the same thing with Aramaic? The question has been asked, and an affirmative answer has been given. Last year, the Israeli Education Minister gave Jish permission to teach Aramaic in the first two years of elementary school; it was necessary to build a program from the ground up. Dictionaries of the language were discovered in France, and a lot of educational materials, in Sweden. Most of the books have been printed in Lebanon. Modern Aramaic is written using an old alphabet (Biblical script uses Hebraic letters), which is something like a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic; it has 22 characters and is written right to left. There are two main dialects, an eastern and a western one (as is the case with Armenian), and a single written model, “Estrangela,” which is used in prayers and religious texts.

 Israeli speakers of Aramaic who use the western dialect have an additional challenge. They have to teach their children how to speak the language and then encourage them to use it in everyday life with friends, family, and at school; they also have to teach them how to write using both the western and Estrangela alphabets. Jish was once the site of Gush Halav, a village from the time of Jerusalem’s Second Temple; it was noted for the fertility of its soil and the high quality of its olives. More than half of its current 3,000 inhabitants are Maronite Christians, whom Israeli soldiers displaced from neighboring Bir’am in 1948; they were not allowed to return to their village of origin, which became the Bar’am Kibbutz. 35 percent are Muslims, while10 percent are Greek Orthodox christians. It is these Maronites who are trying to keep the culture, language, and historical legacy alive.

 Jish has a very lively community life and contacts with other Maronites who live in Israel, Nazareth, Acri, and Haifa. Among these, are almost 2,000 soldiers from the former Southern Lebanese army who found refuge in Israel after the Israeli army withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. At the time, the initiative to teach Aramaic was enthusiastically welcomed; classes for both children and adults were launched. Even the school’s headmaster, a Muslim, actively and staunchly supports the project, so much so that his son is even enrolled in one of the courses, in order to establish solidarity with neighboring regions. Maronites in Jish are a different kettle of fish, however: for them, Aramaic is essential to their existence as a people, in the same way that the Hebrew and Arab languages are for those groups. “We don’t identify ourselves as Aramaic, unlike some other nationalities,” Khallul declared. “For us, the State of Israel is very precious. I am very proud of the military service I carried out as Captain of the paratrooper brigade, and it’s not just a few Aramaics who enlist in the Israeli army. We feel a deep sense of belonging in this place and all of the traditions it has welcomed.” And, in effect, the contact between Maronites goes back a long time. Various Maronite currents were reported at the end of the 1930’s with the advent of the Zionist movement. During the 1939 Arab revolt, the Maronites supplied Jews who had been laid siege to in Safed, food off the back of donkey; they also helped some Holocuast survivors secretly enter Bir’am through the border, when the English closed off Palestine. David Ben Gurion, also worked to create a Maronite Christian state in southern Lebanon, which was financed by his Jewish agency.

Smoke and mirrors
Why do governments want us to believe that smoking cannot be safe but promiscuous sex can?

Earlier this year the Australian federal government unveiled draft legislation to introduce plain packaging laws for cigarettes. Health minister Nicola Roxon was unequivocal in her determination to put the final nail in the coffin of the tobacco industry. 
Showing off the new compulsory olive green packaging with vivid images of clogged arteries, cancerous gums and gangrene-infected feet, the minister declared: “We are going to ensure that in Australia there are no remaining avenues for tobacco companies to market and promote their products, particularly to young people. Gone are the days when people can pretend that cigarettes are glamorous.”
I have never smoked, have never had any desire to smoke and nothing frustrates me more than walking down the street and breathing in the secondhand smoke of the person puffing away in front of me, but this latest legislative push does cause me to wonder about the haphazard approach that federal policy takes to the health of its citizens.
It’s more than haphazard, actually; it’s hypocritical. Witness the deceptive and fallacious “safe sex” campaign that is sold to young people via various well designed and sexy governmental websites and videos. The current, official, safe sex website tagline is, “STIs are spreading fast, always use a condom”. This is accompanied by an attractive, naked young couple embracing.
The message is all about condoms stopping everything from HIV to chlamydia to gonorrhoea. The site contains interactive games and activities to get across the condom message. It even ran a national competition to design a “condom tin” to make carrying condoms “as normal as carrying your mobile phone”. The problem is that the condom is not dealing with the issue, it is just skirting around it. And the issue, which no government in the 21st century would be game enough to speak about, is sexual promiscuity.
In 2005 the government banned terms such as “light”, “mild” and “extra mild” on tobacco packaging as it gave the false impression that some cigarettes were less harmful than others.
Yet here we are, in 2011, still telling young people that it is fine to toy with diseases such a HIV and Syphilis so long as they use a thin rubber sheath. There was a major TV ad campaign run last year in which the entertaining and simplistic message was, “Anyone can get herpes” (anyone who is having promiscuous sex, that is). Before that there was the highly visible campaign promoting the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil which was given out free by the Australian Government to any females aged 12 to 26
The aspect that was not highly discussed in the popular media was that cervical cancer comes about as a result of the human papillomavirus which is a sexually transmitted disease. So, instead of speaking to 12-year-olds about the value of who they are and what sex is, we inject them with a vaccine.
In these campaigns, we see something very different to what goes on in the war against tobacco.

The government is closing down all avenues left for the promotion and sale of tobacco products, yet in the “fight” against deadly sexually transmitted infections the best they can say is, wear a condom and get an injection. What they are not saying is that a sexually promiscuous lifestyle is fraught with the risk of disease and heartache.
What is needed in the campaign is an injection of truth. The safe sex message is supposed to be all about information. Okay, how about this information: women who use the pill for four years or longer prior to their first full term pregnancy have a 52 per cent higher risk of cancer than those not on the pill. That sort of risk is seemingly acceptable, yet last year Toyota recalled 26,000 cars because 0.3 per cent of them experienced a slow brake fluid leak.
What about the fact that girls who are sexually active are more than three times likely to be depressed as girls who are abstinent prior to marriage? Shouldn’t we make it clear that teenage boys who are sexually active are more than twice as likely to struggle with depression and are more than eight times likely to attempt suicide?
Haven’t young people the right to know that those who are sexually active prior to marriage have a significantly increased risk of divorce? For a man who marries as a virgin, his chance of divorce is 63 per cent lower than that of a non-virgin. For girls, it is 76 per cent lower when they marry as virgins.
What young person informed of all these risks would not think twice before experimenting with sex? What responsible authority would not want to persuade adolescents, with the same fervour as they are putting into anti-smoking campaigns, not to start along that path?
Sadly, general Western society has fallen into the pit of relativism so we are impotent to stand up and actually say that promiscuous sex is not glamorous, that it is better to wait until marriage to be sexually active because there is a far higher chance of happiness on every level and a genuinely decreased risk of a diseased body and diseased emotions. After all, there is no condom for the heart.

Bernard Toutounji is an Australian writer and speaker with a background in theology. He writes a regular column called Foolish Wisdom (www.foolishwisdom.com) which focuses on issues of anthropology, morality and truth.

Change happens: new evidence on sexual orientation
Groundbreaking research published this week shows successful change in religiously motivated men and women.

A chorus of voices in the professional world today proclaims that it is impossible to change sexual orientation, particularly homosexual orientation, and that the attempt to change sexual orientation is commonly and inherently harmful. For example, for many years the Public Affairs website of the American Psychological Association stated: “Can therapy change sexual orientation? No. . . . [H]omosexuality . . . does not require treatment and is not changeable.”[1]
Regarding harm, the American Psychiatric Association’s statement that the “potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior”[2] is often cited.
In tension with this supposed professional consensus are the final results of a longitudinal study we have conducted over a period of seven years, now published in The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, a respected, peer-reviewed scientific journal. This study involved a sample of men and women seeking religiously-mediated sexual orientation change through involvement in a variety of Christian ministries affiliated with Exodus International.

A scientifically rigorous study
This study meets high standards of empirical rigor. In other studies, in the words of the American Psychological Association, “treatment outcome is not followed and reported over time as would be the standard to test the validity of any mental health intervention.”[3] Prior research has been appropriately criticized for

• Failing to follow subjects over time (i.e., not longitudinal)
• Relying on memory rather than following change as it occurs (i.e., not prospective)
• Relying on therapist ratings rather than hearing directly from those seeking change
• Using idiosyncratic and unvalidated measures of sexual orientation

The findings in brief
Of the original 98 subjects (72 men, 26 women), 61 subjects completed the key measures of sexual orientation and psychological distress at the conclusion of the study, and were successfully categorized for general outcome. Of these 61 subjects, 53 per cent were categorized as successful outcomes by the standards of Exodus Ministries.
Specifically, 23 per cent of the subjects reported success in the form of successful “conversion” to heterosexual orientation and functioning, while an additional 30 per cent reported stable behavioral chastity with substantive dis-identification with homosexual orientation. On the other hand, 20 per cent of the subjects reported giving up on the change process and fully embracing gay identity.
On the measures of sexual orientation, statistically significant changes on average were reported across the entire sample for decreases in homosexual orientation; some statistically significant change, but of smaller magnitude, was reported in increase of heterosexual attraction. These changes were less substantial and generally statistically non-significant for the average changes of those subjects assessed earliest in the change process, though some of these subjects still figured as “Success: Conversion” cases.
The measure of psychological distress did not, on average, reflect increases in psychological distress associated with the attempt to change orientation; indeed, several small significant improvements in reported average psychological distress were associated with the interventions.
In short, the results do not prove that categorical change in sexual orientation is possible for everyone or anyone, but rather that meaningful shifts along a continuum that constitute real changes appear possible for some. The results do not prove that no one is harmed by the attempt to change, but rather that the attempt to change does not appear to be harmful on average or inherently harmful.

Caution advised
The authors urge caution in projecting success rates from these findings; the figures of 23 per cent successful conversion to heterosexual orientation and 30 per cent to successful chastity are likely overly optimistic projections of anticipated success for persons newly entering Exodus-related groups seeking change.
Further, it was clear that “conversion” to heterosexual adaptation was a complex phenomenon; the authors explore a variety of possible explanations of the findings including religious healing and sexual identity change. Nevertheless, these findings challenge the commonly expressed views of the mental health establishment that change of sexual orientation is impossible or very uncommon, and that the attempt to change is highly likely to produce harm for those who make such an effort.
In our 2007 book, Ex-Gays? (IVP), we discussed the implications of the findings of this study, and those implications are still worthy of consideration. Most importantly, the study suggests that since change seems possible for some, then all should respect the integrity and autonomy of persons seeking to change their sexual orientation for moral, religious, or other reasons, just as we respect those who for similar reasons desire to affirm and embrace their sexual orientation.
This requires that space be created in religious and professional circles for individuals to seek sexual orientation change or sexual identity change with full information offered about the options and their potential risks. We would do well to put as much information as possible in the hands of consumers so that they are able to make informed decisions and wise choices among treatment options.
The results also suggest that it would be premature for professional mental health organizations to invalidate efforts to change sexual orientation and unwanted same-sex erotic attractions.

Stanton L. Jones is Provost (Chief Academic Officer) of Wheaton College (IL) and has served a three-year term on the Council of Representatives of the American Psychological Association. Mark A. Yarhouse is the Rosemarie Scotti Hughes Endowed Chair and Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology and Counseling at Regent University.
Article citation: Stanton L. Jones & Mark A. Yarhouse. (2011). “A longitudinal study of attempted religiously-mediated sexual orientation change.” Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, Volume 37, pages 404-427.
The above article is a slightly edited press release. More information can be found at www.exgaystudy.org See, in particular Responses to criticism (including video).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]American Psychological Association (2005). “Answers to Your Questions About Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality.” Retrieved April 4, 2005, from www.apa.org/pubinfo/answers.html.  This statement was removed some time after 2007.
[2] American Psychiatric Association (1998). “Psychiatric treatment and sexual orientation position statement.” Retrieved from http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/200001.aspx
[3] American Psychological Association (2005); ibid.
[4] Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse (2007). Ex-gays?  A longitudinal study of religiously-mediated change in sexual orientation. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
 

BXVI: The unsung heroes of the Indian Church

Men and women religious are the ‘unsung heroes’ of the Church in India, who ‘inspire others to respond with trust, humility and joy to the invitation of the Lord to follow him’, said Pope Benedict XVI Thursday as he met with the IV and last group of Indian Bishops on their year long Ad limina pilgrimage to Rome.

In an address which we publish in full below, the Pope focused in particular on the Indian Churches’ contribution to society at large, their the various educational and social institutions open to all, and the “efforts made by the whole Christian community to prepare the young citizens of your noble country to build a more just and prosperous society”:

Dear Brother Bishops,
I offer you a warm fraternal welcome on the occasion of your visit ad Limina Apostolorum, a further occasion to deepen the communion that exists between the Church in India and the See of Peter, and an opportunity to rejoice in the universality of the Church. I wish to thank Cardinal Oswald Gracias for his kind words offered on your behalf and in the name of those entrusted to your pastoral care. My cordial greetings also go to the priests, the men and women Religious, and laity whom you shepherd. Please assure them of my prayers and solicitude.

The Church in India is blessed with a multitude of institutions which are intended to be expressions of the love of God for humanity through the charity and example of the clergy, religious and lay faithful who staff them. By means of her parishes, schools and orphanages, as well as her hospitals, clinics and dispensaries, the Church makes an invaluable contribution to the well-being not only of Catholics, but of society at large. Among these institutions in your region, a special place is held by the schools which are an outstanding witness to your commitment to the education and formation of our dear young people. The efforts made by the whole Christian community to prepare the young citizens of your noble country to build a more just and prosperous society have long been a hallmark of the Church in your Dioceses and throughout India. In helping the spiritual, intellectual and moral faculties of their students to mature, Catholic schools should continue to develop a capacity for sound judgment and introduce them to the heritage bequeathed to them by former generations, thus fostering a sense of values and preparing their pupils for a happy and productive life (cf. Gravissimum Educationis, 5). I encourage you to continue to pay close attention to the quality of instruction in the schools present in your Dioceses, to ensure that they be genuinely Catholic and therefore capable of passing on those truths and values necessary for the salvation of souls and the up-building of society.

Of course, Catholic schools are not the only means by which the Church seeks to instruct and to edify her people in intellectual and moral truth. As you know, all of the Church’s activities are meant to glorify God and fill his people with the truth that sets us free (cf. Jn 8:32). This saving truth, at the heart of the deposit of faith, must remain the foundation of all the Church’s endeavours, proposed to others always with respect but also without compromise. The capacity to present the truth gently but firmly is a gift to be nurtured especially among those who teach in Catholic institutes of higher education and those who are charged with the ecclesial task of educating seminarians, religious or the lay faithful, whether in theology, catechetical studies or Christian spirituality. Those who teach in the name of the Church have a particular obligation faithfully to hand on the riches of the tradition, in accordance with the Magisterium and in a way that responds to the needs of today, while students have the right to receive the fullness of the intellectual and spiritual heritage of the Church. Having received the benefits of a sound formation and dedicated to charity in truth, the clergy, religious and lay leaders of the Christian community will be better able to contribute to the growth of the Church and the advancement of Indian society. The various members of the Church will then bear witness to the love of God for all humanity as they enter into contact with the world, providing a solid Christian testimony in friendship, respect and love, and striving not to condemn the world but to offer it the gift of salvation (cf. Jn 3:17). Encourage those involved in education, whether priests, religious or laity, to deepen their faith in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead. Enable them to reach out to their neighbours that, by their word and example, they may more effectively proclaim Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life (cf. Jn 14:6).

A significant role of witness to Jesus Christ is carried out in your country by men and women religious, who are the often unsung heroes of the Church’s vitality locally. Above and beyond their apostolic labours, however, religious and the lives they lead are a source of spiritual fruitfulness for the entire Christian community. As they open themselves to the grace of God, religious men and women inspire others to respond with trust, humility and joy to the invitation of the Lord to follow him.
In this regard, my Brother Bishops, I know that you are aware of the many factors which inhibit spiritual and vocational growth, particularly among young people. Yet we know that it is Jesus Christ alone who responds to our deepest longings, and who gives true meaning to our lives. Only in him can our hearts truly find rest. Continue, therefore, to speak to young people and to encourage them to consider seriously the consecrated or priestly life; speak with parents about their indispensible role in encouraging and supporting such vocations; and lead your people in prayer to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send many more labourers into this harvest (cf. Mt 9:38).

With these thoughts, dear Brother Bishops, I renew to you my sentiments of affection and esteem. I commend all of you to the intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church. Assuring you of my prayers for you and for those entrusted to your pastoral care, I am pleased to impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of grace and peace in the Lord.
 

Eritrea: 3,000 Christians jailed and abused; Myriad violations include forced renunciations

NGOs call for robust UN action in face of Eritrea’s human rights violations  20/09/2011

Human Rights Concern Eritrea (HRCE), Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) and the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) today called upon the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) to conduct a thorough investigation into the wide-ranging human rights violations committed in Eritrea.

The call was issued during a side-meeting at the HRC’s 18th Session, where HRCE, CSW and EHAHRDP were joined by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in condemning the severe human rights crisis currently underway in Eritrea.  The NGOs urged diplomats and the wider HRC to take robust action in response to the findings of any investigation into the flagrant abuses committed by the Eritrean regime against its own people, including the appointment of a Special Rapporteur to address the situation if necessary.

In their contributions, the panelists covered a variety of grave issues, including the detention of the “G-11”, a group of Eritrean officials including Parliamentarians, government ministers and ambassadors who were arbitrarily arrested ten years ago on 18 September 2001 for advocating for domestic reform and the implementation of the ratified Constitution. Six of the original 11 officials have subsequently died in detention as a result of torture and deliberate privations.

In addition, private media was shut down on 18 September 2001, and at least ten journalists were detained.  Most are still incarcerated; however, it is believed that at least four of the journalists may have died in detention. Since that time, tens of thousands of Eritreans have been arrested, including around 3,000 Christians, most of whom remain confined in the country’s myriad detention facilities, where they face mistreatment and deprivation of food and medical treatment, pending renunciation of their faith.

Panellist Elsa Chyrum, Director for HRCE and Focal Person for Eritrea at the EHAHRDP said, “Eritrea’s government has been conducting its domestic policy through nothing else but terror... In light of all the evidence presented here, we urge the HRC and Member States of the United Nations to consider a full investigation into this state of affairs, to arrange a fact-finding mission to Eritrea and to act upon its findings.”

Hassan Shire, Executive Director of EHAHRDP, said, “Eritrea’s human rights record can only be compared to the North Korean situation, and I appeal to HRC to appoint a Special Rapporteur to investigate.”

CSW’s Advocacy Director Andrew Johnston said, “We continue to be deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in Eritrea. The numerous shocking stories that we have received from Eritreans over many years testify to the cruelty of a regime that has received only limited attention from the international community for its domestic human rights violations. This appalling abuse of its own citizens must be brought to an end, and we call on the HRC to take steps to bring this about as a matter of urgency. "
 

Now we have proof that abolishing parental rights and encouraging single-parent families was disastrous: the disaster has happened

What was done by design can be undone the same way. But will there be enough political determination to do it?
By William Oddie on Monday, 15 August 2011. CatholicHerald.co.uk

Photo: A 12-year-old boy leaves Manchester magistrates court last week (PA wire)

Last Thursday, in an article snappily entitled “Why didn’t the looters’ parents know where they were? Why didn’t they teach them about right and wrong? Answer: society has undermined the family”, I quoted Fr Finigan saying that “For several decades our country has undermined marriage, the family, and the rights of parents… Now all of a sudden, we want parents to step in and tell their teenage children how to behave”, and Melanie Phillips pointing to “family breakdown and mass fatherlessness” as one of the principal underlying causes of the riots and looting of last week. I concluded (and I don’t apologise for returning to this theme now: a lot more needs to be said about it, and now is the time to say it) that of all the things the government now needs to do, “it’s the married family which is the institution that needs rebuilding most urgently”.

I am as certain of that as anything I have ever written, and I’ve been saying it for over 20 years: I was saying it, for instance, when I was attacking (in the Mail and also the Telegraph) as it went through the Commons the parliamentary bill which became that disastrous piece of (Tory) legislation called the Children Act 1989, which abolished parental rights (substituting for them the much weaker “parental responsibility”), which encouraged parents not to spend too much time with their children, which even preposterously gave children the right to take legal action against their parents for attempting to discipline them, which made it “unlawful for a parent or carer to smack their child, except where this amounts to ‘reasonable punishment’;” and which specified that “Whether a ‘smack’ amounts to reasonable punishment will depend on the circumstances of each case taking into consideration factors like the age of the child and the nature of the smack.” If the child didn’t think it “reasonable” he could go to the police. It was an Act which, in short, deliberately weakened the authority of parents over their children and made the state a kind of co-parent.

There are, of course, many other causes for the undermining of the married family (which David Cameron says he now wants to rebuild). Divorce, from the 1960s on, became progressively easier and easier to obtain. Another cause has been the insidious notion (greatly encouraged by successive governments but particularly under New Labour – Old Labour tended to be much more traditional in its views on the family) that the family has many forms, that marriage is just one option, and that lone parenting is just as “valid” (dread word) a form as any other. If you thought that voluntary lone parenting should be discouraged, rather than (as it was) positively encouraged by the taxation and benefits system, you were practically written off as a fascist.

Well, all this relativist rubbish has now been comprehensively shown by its consequences to have been dangerous drivel all along; and I am discovering that to be able to say “I told you so” is under the circumstances not at all as enjoyable as I had thought it might be: any satisfaction is of a very grim kind.
But it is now beyond any doubt, and we need to say so now, to nail the lies that have been spouted for the last 40 years once and for all. The conclusive proof of the existence and the effects of the widespread breakdown of parental responsibility (even where there are two parents) and also of the catastrophic consequences of the encouragement of lone parenting was to be found on the front page of the Times on Saturday, in an article to which I can’t give a link since you can’t get it online. I will have to summarise and quote extensively.

The headline was “Judge asks: where are the parents of rioters?” and it opens as follows:

Parents who refuse to take responsibility for children accused of criminal offences were condemned by a judge yesterday who demanded to know why the mother of a 14-year-old girl in the dock over the looting of three shops was not in court.
District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe was incredulous when told that the girl’s parents were too busy to see their daughter appear before City of Westminster magistrates after she was accused of offences during the violent disorder in London this week. She said that many parents “don’t seem to care” that their children were in court facing potentially lengthy custodial sentences.
Her comments echoed those a day earlier by District Judge Jonathan Feinstein when he highlighted the absence of parents at hearings in Manchester. “The parents have to take responsiblity for this child – apart from one case I have not seen any father or mother in court,” he said.

An analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that, among other factors linking the 18 areas worst hit by public disorder, is a high rate of single-parent families and broken homes.
And in an interview with the Times today, Shaun Bailey, a youth worker recently appointed as the Government’s “Big Society” czar, argues that childraising has been “nationalised”.
Of the defendants who appeared before magistrates in Westminster yesterday accused of riot crimes across London, half were aged under 18, but few parents attended the hearings, even though their children had been in police custody for up to two days.
One member of the court’s staff said: “I can’t recall seeing any of the parents down here”… A boy of 15 was accused of looting a JD Sports shop in Barking, East London. A 17-year-old student from East London was also accused of receiving £10,000 of mobile phones, cigarettes and clothing looted from Tesco. The items and small quantity of cannabis were discovered in his bedroom at the family home… community workers admitted that broken families often led to children taking to crime.
One youth worker, who has helped children in Lambeth, south London, for 20 years, told the Times that single mothers were often scared of their sons. “They would not challenge them if they came home with stolen goods,” the worker, who did not wish to be named, said.
“In some cases these young men steal more than their mother earns or gets in benefit. They become the father figure, the main earner.” Young men echo the lack of authority. “My mum can’t tell me what to do,” said Lee, 18, from Copley Court, an estate in West Ealing. “It’s the same with young kids. Most of their dads left early on and they don’t listen to anyone.”

105,000 Christians martyred yearly, says European official
Catholic Culture 7 June 2011

Every year 105,000 Christians are killed because of their faith.
This shocking figure was disclosed by Italian sociologist Massimo Introvigne, representative of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians, at the "International Conference on Inter-religious dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims,” sponsored the Hungarian presidency of the European Union (EU) in Gödöllo, near Budapest.
"Every five minutes”, Introvigne said in his speech, "a Christian is killed for his faith." The figure does not include the victims of civil wars, or wars between nations, but only the people put to death because they are Christians.
"If these figures are not cried out to the world, if this massacre is not stopped," Introvigne continued; "if it is not recognized that the persecution against Christians is the first worldwide emergency with regard to religious discrimination and violence, dialogue between religions will only produce wonderful symposia but no concrete results."
The conference on peaceful coexistence between religions was hosted by the Hungarian government as a highlight of its EU presidency of the European Union and saw among its participants Cardinal Péter Erdo of Budapest; the Custos of the Holy Land, Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa; Archbishop Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants; Maronite Archbishop of Beirut Paul Matar; Metropolitan Hilarion, "foreign minister” of the Russian Orthodox Church; the representative of the European Jewish Congress Gusztáv Zoltai, that of the Organization of Islamic Conference Ömür Orhun; and the general secretary of the Committee for Islamic-Christian dialogue in Lebanon, Chakib Hares Chehab.
The Egyptian diplomat Mahmoud Aly assured participants that his country is about to pass laws that will protect Christian minorities, by prosecuting crimes as hate speech and banning hostile gatherings of outside churches.
"But the danger is for many Christian communities in the Middle East to die out for emigration,” Cardinal Erdo said. "For all Christians will escape feeling threatened. And Europe should be preparing for a new wave of emigration, this time of Christians fleeing persecution." Metropolitan Hilarion, for his part, recalled that "at least one million” of the Christians enduring persecution in the world are children.
 

Breivik's ideology is not based on Christian values

Silence in Norway - Concern arises for the growth of xenophobic and violent extreme right-wing political parties. The floor to the experts.

 Alessandro Speciale - Roma
Christian, but at the same time, Masonic. Inspired by a profound hatred against Islam, yet an admirer of Al Qaeda. So much that he wrote, «if the prophet Mohammed were still alive, Osama bin Laden would be his number two».
The ideology that emerges from the huge and delirious "manifesto" - "2083 - A European Declaration of Independence" - that the Norwegian police have attributed to the 32-year-old perpetrator of the Oslo massacre, Behring Anders Breivik, is certainly contradictory and coarse.
His gesture, however, puts a question on whether, just like in the United States, a violent right-wing movement with strong religious connotations is currently being borne, following the steps which led Timothy McVeight in 1995 to organize the Oklahoma City terrorist attack.
On his Facebook page, the bomber of Oslo, indeed, had defined himself as a "Christian" and a "conservative".
In addition, the movement that "Andrew Berwick" - Breivik himself used this name, anglicizing his real one - said to have founded in London in 2002, is called the "Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici” (Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon). His clique played the role of the «plum tree of Europe and Christianity,» just like the «jihadist fighters define themselves».
However, according to some experts consulted by Vatican Insider, there are no symptoms of the emergence of a distinctly right-wing violence with religious connotations, even if the invitation is not to underestimate the consequences of the violent tone that debates on Islam and immigration sometimes take.
According to Vebjørn Horsfjord, former Secretary General of the European Council of Religious Leaders - Religions for Peace (an international organization based in Oslo which promotes peace and human dignity through the power of faith), even if Breivik defines himself as a Christian, «his ideology does not seem to be nourished with Christian concepts.» Rather, he explained, he belongs «to a wave of strong anti-Islamic and anti-immigration ideology, whose supporters dwell among both the conservative and the secular Christians.» 
Horsfjord, who now teaches inter-religious studies at the Faculty of Theology in Oslo, nonetheless prefers not to connect the bomber too directly with the great development of extreme-right movements across the Old Continent - where their success has led them in some cases, like in Hungary, Holland and Denmark, to actively participate in the governments.
However, he adds, it's time to "reflect" if the "harsh tone" of the debates on interfaith relations, immigration and multiculturalism have inspired «dangerous ideas in some sick minds».
And if it is true that Breivik regarded himself as a Christian, «there is no evidence that it belonged to a Christian group or a Church,» says Brent Nelsen, professor of political sciences at the US Furnam University.
Nelsen in an expert of the relations between religion and politics in Europe and knows Norway very well, having published two books about it. According to him, unlike the United States, European right-wing extremists «say they are linked to Christianity, but do not prove to be very religious».Their motivations, in short, are more political than religious and one should think twice before classifying the attacks in Oslo as "Christian terrorism".
The very success of the extreme right in Europe, with the consequent approach to power and the "mainstream" politics, may have helped to radicalize people like Breivik: «The Progress Party which he belonged to - Nelsen explains - has recently become much more moderate... Breivik used to be part of it but seems to have lost confidence in it, as it drifted to a more central position in the Parliament».
Massimo Introvigne, an Italian sociologist and the OSCE representative on Combating Racism and discrimination against Christians, says that Breivik embodied the Norwegian blogger Fjordman's ideology, the latter being regarded as the terrorist's «true spiritual father». According to him, «after the Middle Ages, Christianity - whose only positive aspects had pagan origins - has become a worst threat for Europe than Marxism».
The Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon is a movement open to «Christians, Christian agnostics, Christian atheists», that is, to all those who recognize the importance of Christian cultural roots, «but also of the Jewish tradition and the Enlightenment» and «the Nordic and pagan traditions», in order to oppose the real enemies: Islam and immigration
«Far from being a fundamentalist Christian - according to Introvigne - Breivik, who was baptized in the Norwegian Lutheran Church, regards himself as a cultural Christian, whose appeal to the Christian heritage has in fact anti-Islamic function».
The Churches, according to him, are not willing to fight Islam: therefore he proposes a great European Christian Congress which could give birth to a new anti-Islamic Church based on the European identity. It directly threatens the Pope Benedict XVI when he writes: «He has abandoned Christianity and European Christians and he must be considered a coward, incompetent, corrupt and illegitimate Pope.»
Indeed, according to Introvigne, the threats against Italy and the Pope should be taken seriously into consideration, if «Breivik 's neo-Templar Order should be proved not to be limited to a single man, but in fact, to include other people - which, according to the text, have been trained in Africa and elsewhere by Serbian war criminals, whom the terrorist regards as heroes».
But if, on one hand, the religious connotation is instrumental and vague, on the other hand, such assumption should not let us underestimate the dangers of extreme-right movements. According to Nelsen, both those with an authoritarian character and those with an anarchic one may indeed be favoured by the «weakening of religious communities that contributes to the overall sense of isolation» within society.
The scenario «reminds of the Twenties,» when «democracy seemed incapable of solving the problems,» and people looked for alternatives in violent movements. «The extreme right could become as violent as the radical Left during the Seventies and the Eighties». But «Europe - he adds – has survived those events and will be able to outlive also these deadly attacks».
 

Pope had Opposed Harry Potter Novels as Cardinal

In March 2003, a month after the English press throughout the world falsely proclaimed that Pope John Paul II approved of Harry Potter, the man who was to become his successor sent a letter to a Gabriele Kuby outlining his agreement with her opposition to J.K. Rowling’s offerings. (See below for links to scanned copies of the letters signed by Cardinal Ratzinger.)
As the sixth issue of Rowling’s Harry Potter series - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - is about to be released, the news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed serious reservations about the novels is now finally being revealed to the English-speaking world still under the impression the Vatican approves the Potter novels.
In a letter dated March 7, 2003 Cardinal Ratzinger thanked Kuby for her “instructive” book
Harry Potter - gut oder böse (
Harry Potter- good or evil?), in which Kuby says the Potter books corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus harming their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy.

“It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly,” wrote Cardinal Ratzinger.

The letter also encouraged Kuby to send her book on Potter to the Vatican prelate who quipped about Potter during a press briefing which led to the false press about the Vatican support of Potter. At a Vatican press conference to present a study document on the New Age in April 2003, one of the presenters - Rev. Peter Fleetwood - made a positive comment on the Harry Potter books in response to a question from a reporter.
Headlines such as “Pope Approves Potter” (Toronto Star), “Pope Sticks Up for Potter Books” (BBC), “Harry Potter Is Ok With The Pontiff” (Chicago Sun Times) and “Vatican: Harry Potter’s OK with us” (CNN Asia) littered the mainstream media.

In a second letter sent to Kuby on May 27, 2003, Cardinal Ratzinger “gladly” gave his permission to Kuby to make public “my judgement about Harry Potter.”
The most prominent Potter critic in North America, Catholic novelist and painter Michael O’Brien commented on the “judgement” of now-Pope Benedict saying, “This discernment on the part of Benedict XVI reveals the Holy Father’s depth and wide ranging gifts of spiritual discernment.” O’Brien, author of a book dealing with fantasy literature for children added, “it is consistent with many of the statements he’s been making since his election to the Chair of Peter, indeed for the past 20 years - a probing accurate read of the massing spiritual warfare that is moving to a new level of struggle in western civilization. He is a man in whom a prodigious intellect is integrated with great spiritual gifts. He is the father of the universal church and we would do well to listen to him.
 

Proven that the apostle St. James is buried in Compostela

Findings of a professor from Navarre University. An investigator deciphers the Hebraic name “Jacob” in the sepulcher of Santiago de Compostela
The finding reinforces the tradition that the remains of the apostle brought from Jerusalem are found in the sepulcher of Compostela.
Europa Press Agency.  06-24-2011

Photo: Inscription used by prof. Alarcon for the deciphering.

Enrique Alarcon, professor of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Navarre,  has deciphered the word ‘Jacob’- the equivalent of James – written in Hebrew characters of the 1st C. in an inscription found in the Compostelan sepulcher. According to the expert’s exposition during the closing of the Catedra Camino de Santiago de la Universidad de Navarra, the name ‘Jacob’ is found interlaced with the Greek word ‘martyr’ (which translated literally means ‘witness’)

The object of this new study was discovered in 1988 in the tomb of Athanasius, adjacent to the tomb of James, by Prof. Isidore Millan. “Its symbolism is very rich and corresponds to the burial inscriptions of the primitive Judaeo-Christian cemetery of Jerusalem. I have found that it alludes to the Jewish feast of Shav’ot (Pentecost), when the apostles preached for the first time to all the nations, as narrated in the New Testament. Christ had charged them that only then could they leave Jerusalem and be his witnesses ‘to the ends of the earth’ (Finis Terre)” explains Enrique Alarcon.
In this line he determines that “the inscription refers to James as one who completes this commission: witness of Christ in Finisterre, the Roman name for the Galician coast, and is almost contemporary, since the Hebrew characters are prior to the year 70”. To which he added the following: “This dating is confirmed because they appear represented in the inscriptions of the ritual breads of Shavu’ot, which ceased to be made precisely the year after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans.” It was the Hebrew University which enabled Prof Alarcon to understand the significance and dating of the inscriptions that were found.

Revealing Data
As put forth by the University of Navarre, the finding reinforces the tradition that in the sepulcher of Compostela are found the remains of the Apostle St. James, brought from Jerusalem, as well as his preaching in Finisterre some years before. “The representation of what appears to be a tongue of fire also coincides with the Pentecost narrative in the New Testament, and ratifies its historicity. Due to its importance, the inscription of Santiago ought to be placed among the principal ones of Christian archeology” explains the investigator.

The complete text of the investigation is published in a volume of studies about the Road of James coordinated by Prof. Piotr Roszak, of the University of Torun in Poland

A little of History
According to ancient local tradition, on 2 January of the year AD 40, the Virgin Mary appeared to James on the bank of the Ebro River at Caesaraugusta, while he was preaching the Gospel in Iberia. She appeared upon a pillar, Nuestra Señora del Pilar, and that pillar is conserved and venerated within the present Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, in Zaragoza, Spain. Following that apparition, St James returned to Judea, where he was beheaded by King Herod Agrippa I in the year 44.

The 12th-century Historia Compostellana commissioned by bishop Diego Gelmírez provides a summary of the legend of St James as it was believed at Compostela. Two propositions are central to it: first, that St James preached the gospel in Iberia as well as in the Holy Land; second, that after his martyrdom at the hands of Herod Agrippa I his disciples Atanasio and Teodoro carried his body by sea to Iberia, where they landed at Padrón on the coast of Galicia, and took it inland for burial at Santiago de Compostela.

An even later tradition states that he miraculously appeared to fight for the Christian army during the battle of Clavijo, and was henceforth called Matamoros (Moor-slayer). Santiago y cierra España ("St James and strike for Spain") has been the traditional battle cry of Spanish armies.

At some time in the first half of the ninth century an ancient mausoleum was discovered in a field in the isolated northern Spanish Christian Galicia..

The discovery of the grave went hand in hand with the miraculous, the story providing the key ingredient to its illustrious name. Compostela (or campus stellae), is so named because the light of the stars over a field guided to an eremite called Pelayo to the ancient burial site. A large number of stone tombs were found aligned in an east west position. The mausoleum was divided in two and the western end appeared to be designed as an atrium or entrance hall to the more substantial eastern half. This latter was decorated with mosaic tiles and marble and contained an impressive sarcophagus. Here was the burial place and shrine of a Christian holy man whose disciples were also buried alongside.

Theodemir, the local bishop was called to investigate the new discovery and very quickly pronounced it to be the tomb and the relics of the Apostle Saint James. The king of Asturias and Galicia, Alfonso II, had a small church built over the site and on his death in 842, Theodemir was buried there.

The site was called Compostela, and very quickly a cult of veneration was established there which was soon known beyond the Pyrenees. In 865 when the monk Usuard of Saint-Germain-des-Près composed his Martyrology, listing the lives of the martyrs he was already aware of the cult at Compostela. Of Saint James he wrote: “his most holy remains were translated from Jerusalem to Spain and deposited in its uttermost region, they are revered with the most devout veneration by the people of those parts”.
 

Rome exhibit displays shirt worn by John Paul II on day he was shot

2011-07-08  - Video

July 8, 2011. (Romereports.com) In this church of Rome's Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul a special new relic is on display. It's the shirt that John Paul II wore the day he was shot in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981.

Sister Beatrice Priori
Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul
“This shirt is important both for what we can see with our eyes and that which isn't visible. It speaks of the great suffering of the pope, what he suffered during the attack but also the suffering that followed him the rest of his life.”

The day of the attack, doctors cut off the shirt to perform emergency surgery and left it in a corner of the operating room. The head nurse of the Policlinico Gemelli, Anna Stanghellini, recovered the shirt, keeping it a secret for years.
After retiring, she moved into the house of the Sisters of Charity. In March of 2000 she confessed her secret to Sister Beatrice Priori who couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Sister Beatrice Priori
Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul
“I was perplexed, thoughtful, and quite frankly I didn't know what to do. Thinking and rethinking, I realized that this was something important and should be preserved from being damaged or ruined. Along with another sister, we decided to preserve it as it is now.”
After the death of John Paul II, the sister decided to take the shirt to the Vatican for verification. Along with it, she brought a letter from the nurse explaining what happened as well as an older letter she had written when she first discovered the shirt. A month later, after being verified, it was back in the hands of the Sisters of Charity.

Sister Beatrice Priori
Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul
“This shirt speaks of John Paul II's ability to forgive, his ability to love others. He forgave the man that tried to kill him, giving him his hand. Behind this shirt is a powerful hand that deflected the bullet. Doctors say if it had entered two millimeters to the left or two to the right, he never would have made it to the Gemelli Hospital. The hand behind this was the Virgin Mary's.”

The religious community has guarded the shirt in a room with other objects of symbolic value. Now, after the beatification of John Paul II, it's on display in their church for everyone to see.
 

India’s Health Minister Calls Homosexuality ‘Unnatural’
By HEATHER TIMMONS and NIKHILA GILL - New York Times
Published: July 5, 2011

NEW DELHI — Sex between two men is “completely unnatural,” India’s health minister told rural leaders during a conference this week about H.I.V. and AIDS, drawing outrage from gay rights activists and health care professionals.
Manish Swarup/Associated Press.

“Unfortunately, there is this disease in the world and in this country where men are having sex with other men, which is completely unnatural and shouldn’t happen, but it does,” Ghulam Nabi Azad, the minister for health and family welfare said on late Monday in Delhi.
He spoke at a two-day meeting between leaders from rural communities and groups fighting AIDS. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress Party president, Sonia Gandhi, also spoke. About 2.5 million people in India are infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The disease is predominantly spread here by unprotected heterosexual sex, according to international health groups.
“In our country the numbers of men having sex with men are substantial, but it is very difficult to find them,” Mr. Azad said. His remarks, part of a speech made in a mixture of Hindi and English, were videotaped and widely distributed by Indian and international media on Tuesday, sparking an outpouring of criticism.
“Not only did he make an uninformed comment, he also did it at an inappropriate time and place,” said Anjali Gopalan, the founder and executive director of the Naz Foundation, a nonprofit group in India that fights the spread of H.I.V.
Mr. Azad “let a golden opportunity pass, for narrow sectarian gains, when he should have used the platform to address the concerns of the country as a whole,” Ms. Gopalan said.
“There is no place for stigma and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” said Michel Sidibé, the executive director of Unaids, in a statement Tuesday released in response to Mr. Azad’s remarks.
The minister’s remarks come as homosexuality is slowly gaining acceptance in some parts of India. In July 2009, New Delhi’s High Court decriminalized homosexuality in a landmark ruling that declared a British-era ban a violation of other parts of India’s Constitution. “Consensual sex amongst adults is legal, which includes even gay sex and sex among the same sexes,” the ruling said.
The second anniversary of the ruling was celebrated last Saturday in New Delhi and other urban areas with parades and parties, though many parade wearers wore masks to conceal their identity.
A spokeswoman for the minister said he would release a statement Tuesday afternoon responding to criticism.
Prime Minister Singh’s remarks at the same conference seemed designed to send the opposite message. “We have to ensure that there is no stigma and discrimination towards H.I.V.-infected and affected persons,” he said, which includes making sure that people get and keep jobs. “You, as the elected leaders, have a major role to play in building up a healthy community response,” he said.
Unprotected sex between heterosexuals is responsible for 87 percent of all new cases transmitted, according to India’s National AIDS Control Program. More than 2.5 million people in India were living with H.I.V. , the virus that causes AIDS, in 2006, according to Unaids, a United Nations-led global group formed to combat the disease.
Programs to fight AIDS and H.I.V. in India are often concentrated on preventing transmission between female prostitutes, their customers and the general population. Theater groups and commercials focus on truck drivers, touting the benefits of using condoms.
 

Hungary sponsors bold pro-life campaign with EU money - Eurocrats enraged

June 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The government of Hungary has enraged the largely pro-abortion establishment in the European Union by sponsoring a nationwide pro-life campaign using funds received from the EU itself.

The campaign consists of posters depicting an unborn child begging for its life. The posters have been placed in subway stations, bus stops, and other public places,
“I understand well that you aren’t ready for me yet, but think twice and give me to the adoption service. LET ME LIVE!” the text says beneath the image of the unborn child.
The posters go on to note that thousands of Hungarian children are killed by abortion each year, while many couples in Hungary are seeking to adopt children.
The campaign has been paid for in part with funds received from the European Union program known as “Progress,” which was created to promote employment and “solidarity” in Europe; the posters bear the program’s logo. However, EU officials have made it clear that the “solidarity” envisioned by the program does not include unborn children, and have ordered Hungarian officials to shut the program down.
According to European Commissioner of Justice, Viviane Reding, the campaign “does not conform to the project submitted by the Hungarian authorities and the [European] Commission is therefore asking the Hungarian authorities to put an end to that part of the campaign and to withdraw the rest of the posters without delay.”
Reding claims that the campaign “goes against European values” and is warning that if Hungary does not do as it is ordered, “we will begin procedures to put an end to the agreement and make the appropriate decisions, including financial ones.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has responded by saying that the project his country submitted to the European Commission aims at promoting “balanced” families. But he added that if the European Commission doesn’t accept his reasoning, he is prepared to take “appropriate measures,” the French Press Agency reported.
According to Hungary’s minister for families and youth, Miklos Soltesz, the government is seeking to raise consciousness about the value of human life, despite the ongoing legality of abortion in the country.  He denies that the campaign is a first step towards the prohibition of abortion.
“Hungarian society isn’t ready for the prohibition of abortion, like Poland for example,” he told the French news agency Hu LaLa. “That isn’t what we are seeking. We want to insist on the importance of life.”
The Hungarian government has expressed its strong pro-life perspective in the creation of a new constitution, which protects the right to life from the moment of conception.  However, officials have also made it clear that they do not believe that they are yet able to enforce the new provisions through legislation prohibiting abortion.
 
 

54 Anglican Clergy to Defect to Catholic Church in Pentecost Ordinations
By Daniel Blake | Christian Post Contributor

The first of a series of ordinations are set to take place, which will see former Anglican clergy defect from the Church of England and become Roman Catholic priests, on Saturday.

(Photo: Reuters/Andrew Winning)
Former Anglican bishops John Broadhurst, Andrew Burnham and Keith Newton stand during their ordination as Catholic priests at Westminster Cathedral in central London.
The first of these will see seven former Church of England clergy be ordained in London by the Most Rev. Peter Smith, Archbishop of Southwark. The event will further establish the new Ordinariate formed by Pope Benedict XVI for Anglicans that wished to defect from the Anglican Church of England in protest against its moves to accept women bishops.
In excess of 900 laity have already moved to the Catholic Church and have been waiting for their clergy to complete training for Catholic priesthood at a seminary in West London.
As the former Anglican clergy become ordained as Catholic priests, they will lead groups of former Anglican laity to branch off from the core Catholic congregations to worship as a separate Ordinariate group. The Vatican will soon publish a separate liturgy for these Ordinariate groups to follow.
According to The Times in London, Keith Newton, who heads up the Ordinariate, has explained that dozens more Church of England clergy are currently also considering their positions within the Anglican Church.
Newton told The Times, “Every week somebody writes or e-mails asking how they can join the Ordinariate. They are often people I have never heard of before.”
Explaining the risk facing those defecting to the Catholic Church, Newton commented: “For clergy it is a practical risk, meaning they abandon tied housing and a guaranteed stipend for a smaller income and uncertainty.”
Newton, himself defected and became a Roman Catholic priest in January this year. He and Andrew Burnham and John Broadhurst – all former Anglican bishops – were welcomed into the Roman Catholic Church during a ceremony at Westminster Cathedral in London.
The three made the move because they were "distressed" by the developments in the global Anglican Communion which they found to be "incompatible" with Christian tradition.
The Vatican announced in 2009 that it would introduce a new church structure that would allow former Anglicans to enter into "full communion" with the Catholic Church while preserving their Anglican traditions.
Pope Benedict XVI made the provision in response to the numerous requests he received from Anglicans who were unhappy with the ordination of women and noncelibate gay bishops.
 

Bishops in Britain call on Catholics to abstain year-round, not only during Lent
By FRANCIS X. ROCCA
Vatican City

Every year during the 40 days of Lent, millions of Catholics honor Jesus's crucifixion by foregoing meat in their Friday meals. But starting this September, if the bishops of England and Wales have their way, Catholics there will abstain from meat every Friday, year-round. This change marks the revival of a practice that the church abandoned a half-century ago—and it's the latest of several in recent years.
Catholic tradition calls for acts of penance every Friday, the day of Jesus's death, but observance of that tradition has changed dramatically since the modernizing reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Bishops in most countries eliminated abstinence from meat or limited it to Lent alone, and each Catholic became free to choose his own form of Friday penance: skipping television, perhaps, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator. This effectively meant the disappearance of Friday penance altogether. In my 11 years of Catholic schooling, I don't recall hearing it mentioned once.
That's why the announcement by the bishops of England and Wales is so significant. To anyone with a taste for sushi or smoked salmon, missing hamburger once a week might present little inconvenience. But then, lightly beating one's breast, as Catholics do in one version of the Penitential rite during Mass, isn't a serious form of corporal mortification either. Catholicism is a fundamentally symbolic religion whose teachings are typically embodied in conventional signs and gestures. 
The English and Welsh bishops specified that they were instructing their flocks to resume Friday abstinence "as a clear and a distinctive mark of their own Catholic identity," adding that the "best habits are those which are acquired as part of a common resolve and common witness."
One of the most obvious functions of religious dietary restrictions is to mark off the boundaries of a religious group. In this respect, too, the effects of meatless Fridays are mild, since there can be hardly any restaurant or cafeteria that doesn't offer some alternative to meat. Unlike Orthodox Jews, for instance, English and Welsh Catholics will have little difficulty dining alongside those of other faiths.
Nevertheless, opting for fish and chips instead of beef stew at Friday lunch will be a signal of religious allegiance. Such a statement is one that many in Britain—long a Protestant society and now one of Europe's most secular—are bound to find unsettling.
Sociologists such as Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, who study the behavior of "religious economies," have observed that churches tend to lose vigor when they relax demands on adherents, especially those tenets and practices that cut against the grain of wider society. In economic terms, lowering the "costs" of membership in this way ends up diminishing its benefits, among other ways by loosening the bonds of community.
In the half century since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has de-emphasized many of the traditional outward signs of its distinctive character, a process that has coincided with a decline in such expressions of commitment as Mass attendance and vocations to the priesthood and religious orders. The growing emphasis on Catholic identity today represents an effort to counteract both trends.
It was a highly suggestive coincidence that the English and Welsh bishops' announcement about Friday penance came the same day as a Vatican document designed to expand access to the Tridentine Mass in Latin, another distinctive practice that fell out of use in the wake of Vatican II. Pope Benedict XVI lifted restrictions on the old Latin Mass in 2007, and though only a small fraction of the world's Catholics attend it today, it has excited disproportionate interest among the young, suggesting that it is a tradition with a future.
So, too, with Eucharistic adoration, or prayer before an exposed Communion host, which Catholics believe to be the body of Christ. A Catholic group in the U.S. recently launched a multimedia campaign to encourage adoration among college students. This form of devotion is also common in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, one of the church's most dynamic and fast-growing movements, especially in the developing world.
Even the veneration of relics, mocked by the Protestant reformers and long downplayed by Catholic leaders, is becoming more popular—to the point that a Vatican theologian last year saw the need to warn against the "risk of crossing the boundary from popular devotion to superstition" and "substituting miracle-performing sensationalism for authentic faith."
Many Catholics, especially among the educated in wealthy countries, regard such practices as embarrassing vestiges of medieval piety, distractions from a more sophisticated spirituality. Yet a scene this month in St. Peter's Square, broadcast on television around the world, sent another message. The sight of a nun displaying a silver reliquary with the blood of the newly beatified Pope John Paul II, to applause from a crowd of 1.5 million devotees, suggests that demand remains strong for a brand of faith that celebrates its difference.

Mr. Rocca is the Vatican correspondent for Religion News Service

Bishop Alencherry is new Syro-Malabar Church head

May 26, 2011

The Syro-Malabar Church has for the first time elected a new head.

The Kerala-based Oriental Catholic rite, which claims its origin to St. Thomas the Apostle, elected Bishop George Alencherry of Thuckalay as its Major Archbishop May 26.
The newly appointed bishop said his services will be for all people of India. He stressed inter-rite relations, inter-faith harmony and ecumenism. The Syro-Malabar Church along with the other Oriental rite Syro-Malankara Church and the Latin rite make up the Catholic Church in India.
Bishop Alencherry, 66, succeeds Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, who headed the Church. The 84-year-old cardinal died April 1 after a prolonged heart ailment.
Pope John Paul II had appointed Cardinal Vithayathil its Major Archbishop in 1999.
Bishop Alencherry, however, is the first head to be elected by the Oriental Church’s synod. The election is part of the new administrative system put in place within the Syro-Malabar Church after Pope John Paul II made it a Major Archiepiscopal Church in 1992.
With that elevation the pope appointed Cardinal Antony Padiyara as its first Major Archbishop. However, the pope reserved the powers to appoint the major archbishop and bishops.
The Vatican in 2004 granted full administrative powers to the Church, including the power to elect bishops.
The synod, following Syro-Malabar Church rules, met at its headquarters in Kochi to elect a new leader. The synod will conclude on May 29.
Bishop Alencherry, born in 1945 in Kerala’s Kottayam district, was ordained a priest in 1972. He became bishop of Thuckalay in 1997. He is currently the secretary of the Syro-Malabar Synod and also the chairman of the Synodal Commission for Catechesis

Algerian Police Orders Closure of All Churches
May 27, 2011

Algerian Christians have appealed for urgent prayer after the police ordered the closure of churches across the country “once and for all”.
The head of the Algerian Protestant Church Association (EPA) – to which the majority of Algerian churches belong – received a notice, dated 22 May, from a High Police Commissioner informing him that a decision had been made to close down all Christian places of worship throughout the country that are not designated for religious purposes.
Most church buildings have not been officially designated because it has proved impossible for them to obtain registration from the authorities following stringent regulations introduced in 2006, which were designed to restrict the religious activity of non-Muslims.
The closure order applies to existing church buildings and those under construction. The High Commissioner threatened “severe consequences and punishments” for violation of the order.

Church clampdown
Algeria is overwhelmingly Muslim; there are around 60,000 Christians in the country, almost all of them converts from Islam. Christians enjoyed six years of relative religious freedom following the end of the civil war in 2000, but the authorities have been clamping down on their activities since the new regulations were introduced.
These required churches to register with a National Commission set up specifically for this purpose, but numerous applications have been met with no response. Churches have been subjected to sporadic closures and police clampdowns on their unregistered activities.
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund, said:
This closure order is the latest and most worrying development in what appears to be a systematic campaign by the authorities to eradicate Christianity in Algeria. Many churches will be driven underground with believers denied the right to practise their faith freely. But praise God that, despite the authorities’ best efforts, the Church in Algeria is growing.
Barnabas Fund supports a number of projects in Algeria including pastors’ training and support, a church-based nursery for Christian children and a theological institute. We have also supported a leadership and discipleship training school and small business initiatives for Christians.

Algerian Christians have made the following prayer requests:

• “May the Lord give wisdom to the church leaders how to deal with this new wave of persecution. The vast majority of the churches are affected by this order.
• For the Lord to take away the spirit of fear and give His Spirit of power, love and self control, to stand firm against the threats of the authorities. (2 Timothy 1:7)
• For the abolition of the March 2006 ordinances.
• That the Church will be allowed to meet and worship in full freedom.
• May our Lord Jesus manifest powerfully His salvation and glorious victory against the evil one in this situation. Amen!”

Pope Recommends Spiritual Direction to Everyone
Says It Is a Way to Live Baptism Responsibly

VATICAN CITY, MAY 19, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Anyone who wants to live their baptism responsibly should have a spiritual director, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope affirmed this today when he addressed members of the Pontifical Theological Faculty Teresianum. The faculty was founded in 1935; the audience with the Holy Father was part of the institute's celebrations of its 75th anniversary.
Benedict XVI reflected on the Carmelite institute's emphasis on spiritual theology in the framework of anthropology. He said that in today's context, studying Christian spirituality from its anthropological foundations "is of great importance."
The Pontiff recognized that an education at the Teresianum not only prepares students to teach this discipline, but has an "even greater grace" in that it gears students to "the delicate task of spiritual direction."
"As she has never failed to do, again today the Church continues to recommend the practice of spiritual direction, not only to all those who wish to follow the Lord up close, but to every Christian who wishes to live responsibly his baptism, that is, the new life in Christ," the Pope stated. "Everyone, in fact, and in a particular way all those who have received the divine call to a closer following, needs to be supported personally by a sure guide in doctrine and expert in the things of God."
The Holy Father noted how a spiritual guide helps ward off subjectivist interpretations as well as providing the counseled with the guide's "own supply of knowledge and experiences in following Jesus."
He likened spiritual direction to the "personal relationship that the Lord had with his disciples, that special bond with which he led them, following him, to embrace the will of the Father (cf. Luke 22:42), that is, to embrace the cross."
The Bishop of Rome urged the Teresianum students to "make a treasure of all that you will have learned in these years of study, to support all those whom Divine Providence will entrust to you, helping them in the discernment of spirits and in the capacity to second the motions of the Holy Spirit, with the objective of leading them to the fullness of grace, 'until we all attain,' as St. Paul says, 'to the measure of the fullness of Christ.'"
 

INDIA-The Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, in Orissa: " Persecution exists, but the faith of Christians is growing"

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - " Persecution on Christians in Orissa exists, but faith grows and strengthens, and even the number of the faithful is increasing. We are not afraid: we will always be ready to tell the truth, to defend the person`s dignity and freedom of religion. Although today in Orissa, as Christians, we feel abandoned by the institutions ": is what Archbishop John Barwa, Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, the leading diocese of the state of Orissa (India north-east), with over 62mila Catholics said in an interview with Fides. The archdiocese includes the district of Kandhamal, the scene in 2008 of anti-Christian massacres that claimed more than 100 deaths and 56 thousand IDPs. The Archbishop, at the Vatican for the ad Limina Apostolorum visit, explains to Fides the reasons and roots of anti-Christian violence.

Excellency, what is the situation of Christians in Orissa today?
Persecution exists, we face many challenges, not without concerns. But we believe that persecution is part of our Christian vocation and Christian life. We are not afraid, but we live it as a blessing from God. We know that where there is persecution, faith is strengthened, and today I am proud to say that faith in my people is strengthening. The blood shed for the faith in Christ is always the seed for new Christians: in Orissa the number of Christians is increasing.

Can you describe the episodes of violence that happen today?
It must be said that massacres like those of 2008 do not occur today. But Christians are terrified and cannot return to their homes. There is a subtle form of oppression and intimidation carried out quite openly by the Hindu extremist groups. It often happens in rural villages, where continuing threats and violence that are often released by the national news as the case of the Christian girl raped and murdered (see Fides 16/5/2011). At the base there is hatred and hostility against Christians that result in discrimination on behalf of some sectors of society and also by the institutions.

Do you have confidence in justice, police and civil authorities?
Orissa is a test for the respect and administration of justice in India. We can see painful examples in which Christians are treated as second class citizens and struggle to get justice. For example, the case of Sister Meena Barwa, the Catholic religious raped in 2008, the responsible were released on bail. The reaction and the results of ongoing trials, after the massacres of 2008, will be strong evidence in the nation to see if people can really have faith in justice and if everyone is equal before the law. And how can one trust the police, who witnessed the rape of sister Meena and other massacres without stopping the attackers? The police did and do not protect us. As Christians, at the moment, we feel are abandoned by the institutions.

This is very serious in democracy ...
It is, but these are the facts. Today we do not feel sufficiently secure and protected. Furthermore, at least so far, we have not received justice for the violence suffered.

How many Hindu extremist groups are there and why are they so strong in Orissa?
I am unable to give figures, but the Hindu radical movements in the area are well known, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and others, blinded by fundamentalism. There are few compared to the majority of Hindus who are peaceful and moderate. But those few continue to incite violence and hatred against Christians and manipulate people.

Why are Christians the favorite target?
For a variety of social, political and religious reasons. The Christian community in Orissa is largely composed of tribal and Dalits. For the evangelization of the tribes there are no problems. The Dalits, however, are considered part of the Hindu society: they are the lower castes who are to serve the higher ones. Christians work to promote human, economic and social development of Dalits, they defend the dignity and they often ask to embrace the Christian faith. This triggers the reaction of the radical Hindus. Sometimes Dalits, freed from the yoke of caste and ideology, set up economic and commercial activities, and this creates competition in economy: another reason for dissatisfaction. This is the land on which extremism and violence flourishes. There are, then, political reasons: Christians do not support the Hindu nationalist parties in power (such as the Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP), and therefore political leaders do not want the community to expand or to be more.

What is your pastoral approach, in such a difficult context?
It is to weave relations of dialogue at all levels: with the common people, with other Christian communities, with the Hindu religious leaders, with civil authorities, with police chiefs, to unite all people of good will. The motto I have chosen for the episcopal ministry is "Thy kingdom come" I believe that this pastoral style may serve to build God's Kingdom in this part of India.

What did the meeting with the Pope mean for you?
The Pope encouraged us Bishops and thanked us for the support we give to our people. He reminded us of our responsibility as Pastors, inviting us to strengthen the faith and defend the dignity of every person. After this meeting, my heart is full with gratitude for God. It was a blessing to come here in the Vatican to meet the Holy Father, to receive words of encouragement and consolation and a blessing from Him.

The Pope underlined the freedom of religion and protection of human rights ...
I felt that passage of the Pope's speech was addressed directly to me and to the situation we live in Orissa. I feel called to proclaim, without fear, the truth about human dignity, freedom of faith, respect for human rights which are often violated in Orissa. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 19/05/2011)
 

Benedict XVI Warns of an Emptied Christianity
Says Emmaus Discouragement Is Present Also Today

VENICE, Italy, MAY 8, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is bringing a message of the new evangelization to northeastern Italy, urging the region to remember that the faith is more than a cultural and social tradition.
The Pope visited Venice and Aquilea Saturday and today, giving four addresses and a homily in just a few hours.
This afternoon, some 300,000 people attended the Mass he celebrated, coming not only from dioceses of the region, but also from Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Germany.
"You live in a context in which Christianity shows itself as the faith that has accompanied the path of so many peoples for centuries, even through persecutions and the most difficult trials," the Holy Father said in his homily. "Nevertheless, today this belonging to Christ runs the risk of being emptied of its truth and its deepest elements: It runs the risk of becoming a perspective that only touches life superficially, in the aspects that are just social and cultural."
He warned of being content with a Christianity "in which the experience of faith in Jesus, crucified and risen, does not enlighten the path of existence."
The Bishop of Rome proposed that the situation of the peoples of the region is similar to that of the disciples on the way to Emmaus.
The depression and discouragement of those two disciples is seen "when the disciples of today distance themselves from the Jerusalem of the Crucified and Risen One, when they cease to believe in the power and the living presence of the Lord," he proposed. "The problem of evil, of pain and suffering, the problem of injustice and abuse, of fear of others, of outsiders, and those who arrive to our lands from far away and seem to threaten who we are, [this] brings Christians of today to say with sadness: 'We had hoped that the Lord would free us from evil, from pain, from suffering, from fear, from injustice."
The Pope invited these Christians to rediscover Christ, through the Word of God, and the sacrament of his Body and Blood, which "restores to us the eyes of faith, so as to see everything and everyone with the eyes of God and the light of his love."
"Be holy!" the Pontiff urged them. "Put Christ at the center of your lives. Build the edifice of your existence upon him.
"In Jesus you will find the strength to open yourselves to others and to make of yourselves, with his example, a gift for all of humanity."
 

Pope Benedict at Last Supper Mass: Satan has been permitted to sift the disciples before the whole world
Pope Benedict Presides at the Mass of the Lord's Supper (Basilica of St. John Lateran)

Vatican City, Apr 21, 2011 / 06:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- During the celebration of the Mass of the Lord's Supper, Pope Benedict reminded that Jesus chose to limit himself to the Catholic Church and his ministers, by warning that "all of us, need to learn again to accept God and Jesus Christ as he is, and not the way we want him to be." "We too find it hard to accept that he bound himself to the limitations of his Church and her ministers."

Pope Benedict's full homily follows.

Dear Brothers and Sisters!
“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk 22:15). With these words Jesus began the celebration of his final meal and the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Jesus approached that hour with eager desire. In his heart he awaited the moment when he would give himself to his own under the appearance of bread and wine. He awaited that moment which would in some sense be the true messianic wedding feast: when he would transform the gifts of this world and become one with his own, so as to transform them and thus inaugurate the transformation of the world. In this eager desire of Jesus we can recognize the desire of God himself – his expectant love for mankind, for his creation. A love which awaits the moment of union, a love which wants to draw mankind to itself and thereby fulfil the desire of all creation, for creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the children of God (cf. Rom 8:19). Jesus desires us, he awaits us. But what about ourselves? Do we really desire him? Are we anxious to meet him? Do we desire to encounter him, to become one with him, to receive the gifts he offers us in the Holy Eucharist? Or are we indifferent, distracted, busy about other things? From Jesus’ banquet parables we realize that he knows all about empty places at table, invitations refused, lack of interest in him and his closeness. For us, the empty places at the table of the Lord’s wedding feast, whether excusable or not, are no longer a parable but a reality, in those very countries to which he had revealed his closeness in a special way. Jesus also knew about guests who come to the banquet without being robed in the wedding garment – they come not to rejoice in his presence but merely out of habit, since their hearts are elsewhere. In one of his homilies Saint Gregory the Great asks: Who are these people who enter without the wedding garment? What is this garment and how does one acquire it? He replies that those who are invited and enter do in some way have faith. It is faith which opens the door to them. But they lack the wedding garment of love. Those who do not live their faith as love are not ready for the banquet and are cast out. Eucharistic communion requires faith, but faith requires love; otherwise, even as faith, it is dead.

From all four Gospels we know that Jesus’ final meal before his passion was also a teaching moment. Once again, Jesus urgently set forth the heart of his message. Word and sacrament, message and gift are inseparably linked. Yet at his final meal, more than anything else, Jesus prayed. Matthew, Mark and Luke use two words in describing Jesus’ prayer at the culmination of the meal: “eucharístesas” and “eulógesas” – the verbs “to give thanks” and “to bless”. The upward movement of thanking and the downward movement of blessing go together. The words of transubstantiation are part of this prayer of Jesus. They are themselves words of prayer. Jesus turns his suffering into prayer, into an offering to the Father for the sake of mankind. This transformation of his suffering into love has the power to transform the gifts in which he now gives himself. He gives those gifts to us, so that we, and our world, may be transformed. The ultimate purpose of Eucharistic transformation is our own transformation in communion with Christ. The Eucharist is directed to the new man, the new world, which can only come about from God, through the ministry of God’s Servant.

From Luke, and especially from John, we know that Jesus, during the Last Supper, also prayed to the Father – prayers which also contain a plea to his disciples of that time and of all times. Here I would simply like to take one of these which, as John tells us, Jesus repeated four times in his Priestly Prayer. How deeply it must have concerned him! It remains his constant prayer to the Father on our behalf: the prayer for unity. Jesus explicitly states that this prayer is not meant simply for the disciples then present, but for all who would believe in him (cf. Jn 17:20). He prays that all may be one “as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21). Christian unity can exist only if Christians are deeply united to him, to Jesus. Faith and love for Jesus, faith in his being one with the Father and openness to becoming one with him, are essential. This unity, then, is not something purely interior or mystical. It must become visible, so visible as to prove before the world that Jesus was sent by the Father. Consequently, Jesus’ prayer has an underlying Eucharistic meaning which Paul clearly brings out in the First Letter to the Corinthians: “The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:16ff.). With the Eucharist, the Church is born. All of us eat the one bread and receive the one body of the Lord; this means that he opens each of us up to something above and beyond us. He makes all of us one. The Eucharist is the mystery of the profound closeness and communion of each individual with the Lord and, at the same time, of visible union between all. The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity. It reaches the very mystery of the Trinity and thus creates visible unity. Let me say it again: it is an extremely personal encounter with the Lord and yet never simply an act of individual piety. Of necessity, we celebrate it together. In each community the Lord is totally present. Yet in all the communities he is but one. Hence the words “una cum Papa nostro et cum episcopo nostro” are a requisite part of the Church’s Eucharistic Prayer. These words are not an addendum of sorts, but a necessary expression of what the Eucharist really is. Furthermore, we mention the Pope and the Bishop by name: unity is something utterly concrete, it has names. In this way unity becomes visible; it becomes a sign for the world and a concrete criterion for ourselves.

Saint Luke has preserved for us one concrete element of Jesus’ prayer for unity: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22:31). Today we are once more painfully aware that Satan has been permitted to sift the disciples before the whole world. And we know that Jesus prays for the faith of Peter and his successors. We know that Peter, who walks towards the Lord upon the stormy waters of history and is in danger of sinking, is sustained ever anew by the Lord’s hand and guided over the waves. But Jesus continues with a prediction and a mandate. “When you have turned again…”. Every human being, save Mary, has constant need of conversion. Jesus tells Peter beforehand of his coming betrayal and conversion. But what did Peter need to be converted from? When first called, terrified by the Lord’s divine power and his own weakness, Peter had said: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Lk 5:8). In the light of the Lord, he recognizes his own inadequacy. Precisely in this way, in the humility of one who knows that he is a sinner, is he called. He must discover this humility ever anew. At Caesarea Philippi Peter could not accept that Jesus would have to suffer and be crucified: it did not fit his image of God and the Messiah. In the Upper Room he did not want Jesus to wash his feet: it did not fit his image of the dignity of the Master. In the Garden of Olives he wielded his sword. He wanted to show his courage. Yet before the servant girl he declared that he did not know Jesus. At the time he considered it a little lie which would let him stay close to Jesus. All his heroism collapsed in a shabby bid to be at the centre of things. We too, all of us, need to learn again to accept God and Jesus Christ as he is, and not the way we want him to be. We too find it hard to accept that he bound himself to the limitations of his Church and her ministers. We too do not want to accept that he is powerless in this world. We too find excuses when being his disciples starts becoming too costly, too dangerous. All of us need the conversion which enables us to accept Jesus in his reality as God and man. We need the humility of the disciple who follows the will of his Master. Tonight we want to ask Jesus to look to us, as with kindly eyes he looked to Peter when the time was right, and to convert us.
After Peter was converted, he was called to strengthen his brethren. It is not irrelevant that this task was entrusted to him in the Upper Room. The ministry of unity has its visible place in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Dear friends, it is a great consolation for the Pope to know that at each Eucharistic celebration everyone prays for him, and that our prayer is joined to the Lord’s prayer for Peter. Only by the prayer of the Lord and of the Church can the Pope fulfil his task of strengthening his brethren – of feeding the flock of Christ and of becoming the guarantor of that unity which becomes a visible witness to the mission which Jesus received from the Father.

“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you”. Lord, you desire us, you desire me. You eagerly desire to share yourself with us in the Holy Eucharist, to be one with us. Lord, awaken in us the desire for you. Strengthen us in unity with you and with one another. Grant unity to your Church, so that the world may believe. Amen.

John Paul II a radiant examples of faith, Pope says
During the celebration of the Chrism Mass at the Vatican this morning, Pope Benedict said that despite the scandals in the Church, there are still "radiant examples of faith" such as John Paul II, who will be beatified on May 1.

Pope Benedict's full homily follows:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
At the heart of this morning’s liturgy is the blessing of the holy oils – the oil for anointing catechumens, the oil for anointing the sick, and the chrism for the great sacraments that confer the Holy Spirit: confirmation, priestly ordination, episcopal ordination. In the sacraments the Lord touches us through the elements of creation. The unity between creation and redemption is made visible. The sacraments are an expression of the physicality of our faith, which embraces the whole person, body and soul. Bread and wine are fruits of the earth and work of human hands. The Lord chose them to be bearers of his presence. Oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit and at the same time it points us towards Christ: the word "Christ" (Messiah) means "the anointed one". The humanity of Jesus, by virtue of the Son’s union with the Father, is brought into communion with the Holy Spirit and is thus "anointed" in a unique way, penetrated by the Holy Spirit. What happened symbolically to the kings and priests of the Old Testament when they were instituted into their ministry by the anointing with oil, takes place in Jesus in all its reality: his humanity is penetrated by the power of the Holy Spirit. He opens our humanity for the gift of the Holy Spirit. The more we are united to Christ, the more we are filled with his Spirit, with the Holy Spirit. We are called "Christians": "anointed ones" – people who belong to Christ and hence have a share in his anointing, being touched by his Spirit. I wish not merely to be called Christian, but also to be Christian, said Saint Ignatius of Antioch. Let us allow these holy oils, which are consecrated at this time, to remind us of the task that is implicit in the word "Christian", let us pray that, increasingly, we may not only be called Christian but may actually be such.

In today’s liturgy, three oils are blessed, as I mentioned earlier. They express three essential dimensions of the Christian life on which we may now reflect. First, there is the oil of catechumens. This oil indicates a first way of being touched by Christ and by his Spirit – an inner touch, by which the Lord draws people close to himself. Through this first anointing, which takes place even prior to baptism, our gaze is turned towards people who are journeying towards Christ – people who are searching for faith, searching for God. The oil of catechumens tells us that it is not only we who seek God: God himself is searching for us. The fact that he himself was made man and came down into the depths of human existence, even into the darkness of death, shows us how much God loves his creature, man. Driven by love, God has set out towards us. "Seeking me, you sat down weary ... let such labour not be in vain!", we pray in the Dies Irae. God is searching for me. Do I want to recognize him? Do I want to be known by him, found by him? God loves us. He comes to meet the unrest of our hearts, the unrest of our questioning and seeking, with the unrest of his own heart, which leads him to accomplish the ultimate for us. That restlessness for God, that journeying towards him, so as to know and love him better, must not be extinguished in us. In this sense we should always remain catechumens. "Constantly seek his face", says one of the Psalms (105:4). Saint Augustine comments as follows: God is so great as to surpass infinitely all our knowing and all our being. Knowledge of God is never exhausted. For all eternity, with ever increasing joy, we can always continue to seek him, so as to know him and love him more and more. "Our heart is restless until it rests in you", said Saint Augustine at the beginning of his Confessions. Yes, man is restless, because whatever is finite is too little. But are we truly restless for him? Have we perhaps become resigned to his absence, do we not seek to be self-sufficient? Let us not allow our humanity to be diminished in this way! Let us remain constantly on a journey towards him, longing for him, always open to receive new knowledge and love!

Then there is the oil for anointing the sick. Arrayed before us is a host of suffering people: those who hunger and thirst, victims of violence in every continent, the sick with all their sufferings, their hopes and their moments without hope, the persecuted, the downtrodden, the broken-hearted. Regarding the first mission on which Jesus sent the disciples, Saint Luke tells us: "he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal" (9:2). Healing is one of the fundamental tasks entrusted by Jesus to the Church, following the example that he gave as he travelled throughout the land healing the sick. To be sure, the Church’s principal task is to proclaim the Kingdom of God. But this very proclamation must be a process of healing: "bind up the broken-hearted", we heard in today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah (61:1). The proclamation of God’s Kingdom, of God’s unlimited goodness, must first of all bring healing to broken hearts. By nature, man is a being in relation. But if the fundamental relationship, the relationship with God, is disturbed, then all the rest is disturbed as well. If our relationship with God is disturbed, if the fundamental orientation of our being is awry, we cannot truly be healed in body and soul. For this reason, the first and fundamental healing takes place in our encounter with Christ who reconciles us to God and mends our broken hearts. But over and above this central task, the Church’s essential mission also includes the specific healing of sickness and suffering. The oil for anointing the sick is the visible sacramental expression of this mission. Since apostolic times, the healing vocation has matured in the Church, and so too has loving solicitude for those who are distressed in body and soul. This is also the occasion to say thank you to those sisters and brothers throughout the world who bring healing and love to the sick, irrespective of their status or religious affiliation. From Elizabeth of Hungary, Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac, Camillus of Lellis to Mother Teresa – to recall but a few names – we see, lighting up the world, a radiant procession of helpers streaming forth from God’s love for the suffering and the sick. For this we thank the Lord at this moment. For this we thank all those who, by virtue of their faith and love, place themselves alongside the suffering, thereby bearing definitive witness to the goodness of God himself. The oil for anointing the sick is a sign of this oil of the goodness of heart that these people bring – together with their professional competence – to the suffering. Even without speaking of Christ, they make him manifest.

In third place, finally, is the most noble of the ecclesial oils, the chrism, a mixture of olive oil and aromatic vegetable oils. It is the oil used for anointing priests and kings, in continuity with the great Old Testament traditions of anointing. In the Church this oil serves chiefly for the anointing of confirmation and ordination. Today’s liturgy links this oil with the promise of the prophet Isaiah: "You shall be called the priests of the Lord, men shall speak of you as the ministers of our God" (61:6). The prophet makes reference here to the momentous words of commission and promise that God had addressed to Israel on Sinai: "You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Ex 19:6). In and for the vast world, which was largely ignorant of God, Israel had to be as it were a shrine of God for all peoples, exercising a priestly function vis-à-vis the world. It had to bring the world to God, to open it up to him. In his great baptismal catechesis, Saint Peter applied this privilege and this commission of Israel to the entire community of the baptized, proclaiming: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people" (1 Pet 2:9f.) Baptism and confirmation are an initiation into this people of God that spans the world; the anointing that takes place in baptism and confirmation is an anointing that confers this priestly ministry towards mankind. Christians are a priestly people for the world. Christians should make the living God visible to the world, they should bear witness to him and lead people towards him. When we speak of this task in which we share by virtue of our baptism, it is no reason to boast. It poses a question to us that makes us both joyful and anxious: are we truly God’s shrine in and for the world? Do we open up the pathway to God for others or do we rather conceal it? Have not we – the people of God – become to a large extent a people of unbelief and distance from God? Is it perhaps the case that the West, the heartlands of Christianity, are tired of their faith, bored by their history and culture, and no longer wish to know faith in Jesus Christ? We have reason to cry out at this time to God: "Do not allow us to become a ‘non-people’! Make us recognize you again! Truly, you have anointed us with your love, you have poured out your Holy Spirit upon us. Grant that the power of your Spirit may become newly effective in us, so that we may bear joyful witness to your message!

For all the shame we feel over our failings, we must not forget that today too there are radiant examples of faith, people who give hope to the world through their faith and love. When Pope John Paul II is beatified on 1 May, we shall think of him, with hearts full of thankfulness, as a great witness to God and to Jesus Christ in our day, as a man filled with the Holy Spirit. Alongside him, we think of the many people he beatified and canonized, who give us the certainty that even today God’s promise and commission do not fall on deaf ears.

I turn finally to you, dear brothers in the priestly ministry. Holy Thursday is in a special way our day. At the hour of the last Supper, the Lord instituted the new Testament priesthood. "Sanctify them in the truth" (Jn 17:17), he prayed to the Father, for the Apostles and for priests of all times. With great gratitude for the vocation and with humility for all our shortcomings, we renew at this hour our "yes" to the Lord’s call: yes, I want to be intimately united to the Lord Jesus, in self-denial, driven on by the love of Christ. Amen.
 

Report finds few allegations of sex abuse by Catholic clergy in 2010
By Kevin J. Jones

Washington D.C., Apr 11, 2011 / 07:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Only seven credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors in 2010 were made against Catholic priests in the U.S., a new report says. The seven accused priests make up a very small percentage of the 38,000 diocesan and religious clergy in the reporting dioceses and eparchies.
Meanwhile, over 5.1 million children and two million adults have undergone child protection training. Nearly 1.7 million church volunteers, 239,000 employees, 162,000 educators, 6,000 candidates for ordination and 14,800 deacons have been trained.
“We will continue to work to our utmost for the protection of children and youth,” Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York reaffirmed in the report’s preface. “We are committed to ensuring that those who are ordained to the priesthood and put into positions of trust will share this commitment to protecting children and youth as part of their love and commitment to Jesus Christ and his Church.”
The report on the implementation of the U.S. bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People was authored by the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection for the National Review Board and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It concerned abuse allegations and child protection policy compliance in almost all Catholic dioceses and Eastern Catholic eparchies of the United States.
The report included a survey by the Georgetown University-Based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).
CARA found that hundreds of accounts of sexual abuse from decades ago were reported to dioceses only last year. The number of alleged offenders increased from 286 alleged offenders reported in 2009 to 345 alleged offenders reported in 2010.
Almost 60 percent of these offenders had been identified in earlier allegations. Three quarters of them are dead or laicized.
Two third of the allegations occurred or began between 1960 and 1984, with the most common time period of alleged abuse occurring from 1970 to 1974.
In 2010, 683 abuse victims came forward to report abuse, with 653 of these abuse allegations regarding decades-old incidents.
“The Church can never forget the harm done to victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse,” the report said. “Healing those wounds must remain a top priority for all the Church. Our work is finished only when all victims are comforted and healed.”
Dioceses reported providing outreach to 478 victims in 2010 while another 1,868 who previously reported abuse are still receiving support.
The financial costs of sexual abuse are still considerable. Settlements paid out by diocese and eparchies in 2010 were $70.4 million, an increase of 28 percent over the previous year’s payments. At least $21 million was spent for child protection efforts including safe environment coordinators, training programs and background checks.
Over 98 percent of clergy, church employees and volunteers have had safe environment training. Background checks have been conducted for over 99 percent of clergy, 99.8 percent of educators, 98.5 percent of church employees and 99.2 percent of volunteers.
The audit “shows the Church’s noteworthy job in keeping its promise to protect and pledge to heal,” said Teresa M. Kettelkamp, executive director of the Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection, in an introductory letter for the report.
Two Roman Catholic dioceses and five Eastern Catholic eparchies have declined to participate in the audits
 

A Lesson of Holiness from Remote Pakistan

The martyrdom of Shahbaz Bhatti, minister of religious minorities. "Until the last breath, I will continue to serve Jesus and this poor, suffering humanity." His spiritual testament published by "La Civiltà Cattolica"

by Sandro Magister

ROME, April 14, 2011 – For the Catholics of Pakistan, he is "the martyr." His name is Shahbaz Bhatti. He was killed last March 2 by Islamic terrorists because he was "Christian, an infidel and a blasphemer." He was the minister for religious minorities.
One month later, at the end of the general audience on Wednesday, April 6, Benedict XVI received his brother, Paul Bhatti, a doctor who lived in Italy for many years but returned to his country precisely in order to continue his brother's mission, and has been appointed a special adviser on religious minorities to the prime minister of Pakistan.
With Paul, the pope also met the grand imam of Lahore, Khabior Azad, a personal friend of Shahbaz.
The Bible that Shahbaz always had with him is now in Rome in the memorial for the martyrs of the past century, in the basilica of Saint Bartholomew on the Isola Tiberina.
One of the most informative and concerned articles on what his murder has meant in Pakistan and in the whole world is without a doubt the one published in "La Civiltà Cattolica" dated April 2, 2011.
An article that is all the more significant given that this magazine of the Rome Jesuits is printed after inspection and authorization by the Vatican secretariat of state. So it reflects the thinking of the Holy See in this regard.
In Pakistan, out of a population of 185 million inhabitants, Christians are 2 percent, one million of them Catholic. But among the Muslims as well there are minorities in danger: Shiites, Sufis, Ismaili, Ahmadis.
The law against blasphemy is a weapon used against the minorities. It was introduced by the English in 1927, and kept in effect in 1947, after Pakistan's independence and separation from India. But beginning in 1977, after the military coup by Zia-ul-Haq, Islamization has been increasing and the law against blasphemy – brought back into vogue with a vengeance – has been joined by other norms based on sharia. For example, four witnesses are required to prove a charge of rape on a woman, who is otherwise considered an adulterer. Or, another example, a Muslim who rapes a Christian, if he forces her to marry him and convert to Islam, can no longer be prosecuted for rape.
For blaspheming Mohammed, the death penalty has been introduced, and for profanation of the Qur'an, a life sentence. The Justice and Peace commission of the Catholic bishops of Pakistan has estimated that from 1987 to 2009, 1,032 persons have been unjustly punished using the law against blasphemy.
One of these is Asia Bibi a 45-year-old mother of five, sentenced to hanging in November of 2010 and currently awaiting an appeal ruling. She was accused by other women of her village who were working with her in the fields when a quarrel broke out over the use of water. Even if she is exonerated or pardoned, Asia will not feel safe, because various Muslim figures have made death threats against her.
A new case defined by the Pakistani bishops as "abuse of the law against blasphemy for personal revenge" has in recent days hit another Christian, Arif Masih, in the village Chak Jhumra.
A day of prayer for Asia Bibi, Arif Masih and all the other persons arrested for the same accusation will be celebrated on April 20, Wednesday of Holy Week, in Pakistan and other countries. In Rome, in the chapel of the Italian parliament, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran will celebrate a Mass that will also be in memory of Shahbaz Bhatti.
Charges of blasphemy are based on the word of the accuser, who, however, must not report the precise content of the offense in order to avoid being charged with the same crime. The judges, in turn, are afraid of being killed, as has happened on occasion, if they exonerate a defendant. So they often tend to delay the verdict, but without granting bail. Moreover, as a general rule, a non-Muslim in court must have a Muslim attorney and judge.
This and other information is reported in the notes to the article from "La Civiltà Cattolica."
Here it is almost in its entirety, by gracious permission of the magazine.
_______________

THE ASSASSINATION OF SHAHBAZ BHATTI
by Luciano Larivera, S.J.

[...] There is a state, Pakistan, whose nuclear arsenal continues to grow. But whose  political stability is threatened every day, and in a systematic way, by ethnic and religious violence and hatred. Its tragic example is the warning, for other Islamic countries, of how the virus of religious intolerance can get out of control and gradually lead a democracy to collapse. [...] This is why we cannot forget a heroic and generous Pakistani politician, Shahbaz Bhatti. A humble and serious Christian.
*
"My name is Shahbaz Bhatti. I was born into a Catholic family. My father, a retired teacher, and my mother, a housewife, raised me according to Christian values and the teachings of the Bible, which influenced my childhood. Since I was a child, I was accustomed to going to church and finding profound inspiration in the teachings, the sacrifice, and the crucifixion of Jesus. It was his love that led me to offer my service to the Church. The frightening conditions into which the Christians of Pakistan had fallen disturbed me. I remember one Good Friday when I was just thirteen years old: I heard a homily on the sacrifice of Jesus for our redemption and for the salvation of the world. And I thought of responding to his love by giving love to my brothers and sisters, placing myself at the service of Christians, especially of the poor, the needy, and the persecuted who live in this Islamic country.
"I have been asked to put an end to my battle, but I have always refused, even at the risk of my own life. My response has always been the same. I do not want popularity, I do not want positions of power. I only want a place at the feet of Jesus. I want my life, my character, my actions to speak of me and say that I am following Jesus Christ. This desire is so strong in me that I consider myself privileged whenever – in my combative effort to help the needy, the poor, the persecuted Christians of Pakistan – Jesus should wish to accept the sacrifice of my life. I want to live for Christ and it is for Him that I want to die. I do not feel any fear in this country. Many times the extremists have wanted to kill me, imprison me; they have threatened me, persecuted me, and terrorized my family.
"I say that, as long as I am alive, until the last breath, I will continue to serve Jesus and this poor, suffering humanity, the Christians, the needy, the poor. I believe that the Christians of the world who have reached out to the Muslims hit by the tragedy of the earthquake of 2005 have built bridges of solidarity, of love, of comprehension, and of tolerance between the two religions. If these efforts continue, I am convinced that we will succeed in winning the hearts and minds of the extremists. This will produce a change for the better: the people will not hate, will not kill in the name of religion, but will love each other, will bring harmony, will cultivate peace and comprehension in this region.
"I believe that the needy, the poor, the orphans, whatever their religion, must be considered above all as human beings. I think that these persons are part of my body in Christ, that they are the persecuted and needy part of the body of Christ. If we bring this mission to its conclusion, then we will have won a place at the feet of Jesus, and I will be able to look at him without feeling shame."
This is the spiritual testament of Shahbaz Bhatti, federal minister of religious minorities in Pakistan, born on September 9, 1968 and assassinated last March 2 by an extremist brigade in the capital of Islamabad. He was a member of the main governing party, the PPP, the Pakistan Peoples Party. A few weeks earlier, he had asked: "Pray for me. I am a man who has burned his ships behind him: I cannot and I do not want to turn back in this effort. I will combat extremism and I will fight in defense of the Christians to the death." Bhatti lived with his mother and other relatives. He had decided not to get married in order to consecrate himself to his mission. He did not choose the priesthood "because he wanted to be among the people, in direct contact with persons and their difficulties, something that priests are often unable to do in his country."
On March 2, the minister was with his driver and a nephew in an official vehicle, which had not been armored in spite of requests. The terrorist brigade dragged Bhatti out of the car and massacred him with 30 gunshots. The assassination is to be attributed to the Pakistani Taliban of Punjab. They worked without interference, and left at the scene of the crime some fliers signed Tehrik-e-Taliban-Punjab. The minister had not wanted an escort, mindful that his friend and fellow party member Salmaan Taseer, governor of Punjab and a Muslim, had been killed precisely by a member of his escort, without his other bodyguards intervening. This had taken place two months earlier, on January 4. And his assassin has been turned into a hero, with lawyers competing to defend him free of charge.
*
Taseer and Bhatti were pursuing the ideal of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan, of a country where, with respect to the Sunni Muslims, the religious minorities (Shiites, Sufi Muslims, Isma'ili, Ahmadis, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Baha'i . . .) enjoy equal rights. Both have been "punished" for having fought for the abolition or at least the reform of the law on blasphemy, the root of the problem for Pakistani Christians. Extremist voices are asking that any request to modify the "black law" be considered blasphemy. Such a law seems untouchable. And it is exploited, especially in the more populous Punjab, to settle personal disputes even among Muslims. There is impunity for those who have it applied in an extrajudicial form. But as observed recently by the director of the Vatican press office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, this law "in itself is truly blasphemous, because in the name of God it is a cause of injustice and death." [...] Bhatti wanted to keep alive the commission for the revision of the law on blasphemy, backed by President Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's widower, and present in its electoral platform for the vote on November 6, 2008.
A further fault of the Muslim governor and of the Catholic minister was that of having called for the liberation of Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old mother of five, sentenced to death by hanging in November of 2010 for having offended the Prophet Mohammed, but awaiting an appeal ruling. Bhatti did not feed the media fire over the Asia Bibi case, to avoid reigniting the fundamentalist reaction. And, in general, Catholics distance themselves from initiatives that tend to create conflict with Pakistani institutions. In spite of this, on the occasion of March 8, International Women's Day, the Pakistani Catholic Church and Indian Christians launched the latest in a series of appeals for the liberation of Asia Bibi, who is in danger of being killed in prison. Moreover, they affirmed that this woman symbolizes all the others who are behind bars or in apparent freedom, oppressed by disparity, intolerance and violence because of their sex or the faith they profess.
After the state funeral in the capital, the "martyr" Bhatti was buried, in the presence of 10,000 people of every creed, in Khushpur near Faisalabad, in Punjab. The minister spent his childhood in this Catholic village founded by the Dominicans. With the latest reshuffling of the government, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of the PPP had confirmed Bhatti's position, in part because of insistence from the West, in spite of the slashing of ministers from 60 to 22 to contain public spending and pressure from Islamic coalition parties to eliminate that agency. Bhatti was, moreover, the only non-Muslim in the federal government of Pakistan.
*
Benedict XVI, last September, had met him in his capacity as minister; and, in his speech to the diplomatic corps on January 10, the pontiff had mentioned the law against blasphemy in Pakistan, encouraging "once more the leaders of that country to take the necessary steps to abrogate the law." He had also paid homage to the courageous sacrifice of Governor Taseer. But some Pakistanis do not intend to listen to the pope's words. Religious parties in particular consider the statements of Benedict XVI a form of interference in domestic politics. The fundamentalists control the minds of their followers, fomenting hatred and violence. And yet Christians have good relationships with the majority of Muslims. After the Angelus last March 6, the pope issued this appeal and further gestures to comfort the Pakistani Catholics traumatized by the murder: "I ask the Lord Jesus that the touching sacrifice of Pakistani minister Shahbaz Bhatti's life may awaken in consciences the courage and commitment to protect the religious freedom of all men and, in this way, to promote their equal dignity."
A huge banner with Bhatti's image and name has been hanging outside of the Italian foreign ministry since March 5, to commemorate the man and affirm the commitment of Italian diplomacy in defense of religious freedom in the world. Foreign minister Franco Frattini, interviewed by "Avvenire" on March 3, referred to a confidential conversation with Bhatti in his modest office in Islamabad last November: "He told me that his adversaries were trying to take funding away from the ministry for religious minorities, a way to reduce it to insignificance and, then, to closure. And he asked me to help him make his work known in the international community, because only in this way could he save his ministry." Frattini then added: "Now the cowards of that Europe which flees from the condemnation of religious fundamentalism will shed their crocodile tears, allies of those cowards in Pakistan who know only the blood of attacks [...] I am thinking of those in Europe who are very attentive to the 'politically correct', to the point of never using, in official documents, the words 'persecuted Christians'. I see this as o form of political cowardice which today, in the face of a new martyr, is even more scandalous." [...]
*
Confronted with this terrorist crime, the Pakistani bishops immediately declared and confirmed that "this is a perfectly tragic example of the unsustainable climate of intolerance in which we live in Pakistan. We call on the government, the institutions, the whole country to recognise and take decisions about these issues, because there must be an end to this situation, where violence prevails." They also sent a request to the Holy See that Bhatti be proclaimed a martyr, killed "in odium fidei." The imam of the Badshahi mosque in Lahore himself, Khabior Mohammad Azad, shaken by the death of his "good friend" Bhatti, charged that "the people no longer have the right to express their opinions" and that "those who have claimed responsibility for the assassination are not Muslims, nor human beings," because "Islam is a religion of peace, which teaches respect for minorities."
Unfortunately, murders motivated by religion are advocated publicly by Islamic extremists as acts that are pleasing to God and guarantee immediate salvation. But the Pakistani state is not able to prevent and punish violence against the minorities. On the contrary, religious hatred is even fostered in Pakistan's public schools. The official tests exclude references to the religious minorities, not considered part of the nation. In addition to distorted teaching, there are preachers in the mosques, on television and on the internet who proclaim the list of enemies to be struck down, and so feed the "culture" of religious intolerance. On the roster now is member of parliament Sherry Rehman, who in 2010 had proposed a modification of the law on blasphemy, without receiving the support of her party, the PPP, which forced her to withdraw the initiative. She lives in semi-seclusion and receives constant death threats. For others, the only alternative is to seek asylum abroad.
In addition to the Christians, in Pakistan, discrimination against the Ahmadis is legal because they are considered heretical non-Muslims, and for this reason they boycott the elections. There are tensions between the two Sunni schools of the Deobandi and the Barelvi. And the religious violence is systematic, and can hit anyone. So, for example, on March 4 ten Sufi Muslims, considered heretics by other Muslims, were killed in the area of one of their sacred places near Peshawar. But the street demonstrations of the minorities or of moderate Muslims don't scare anyone, and their voices are lost, while they are also exposed to suicide attacks. On March 5 a Muslim, Mohammad Imran, was murdered in a village near Rawalpindi. He had been released from prison because of lack of proof that he had offended Mohammed. On March 15 Qamar David, a Christian unjustly given a life sentence for blasphemy, was killed in prison. He had been beaten and mistreated by the prison guards. And his death, from cardiac arrest, raises many doubts among the Christians. Human rights activists also fall victim to the extremists, like Naeem Sabir, killed in the province of Balochistan last March 1.
*
Pakistan suffers from countless ethnic and political divisions. The climate of intolerance is fed by the murderous extremists and by radical religious leaders, but also by lawyers, journalists, politicians, for their hegemonic ends. Separatist movements are still active in Balochistan, in part because the distribution of wealth is very unequal in the territory of Pakistan. The Pashtun ethnic group, while it does not seek secession and annexation with a part of Afghan territory, is increasingly dominated by fundamentalist and anti-government ideology. Then there are the tensions with India over Kashmir. There is also irritation toward the pro-Indian government of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. With Beijing, Islamabad's closest ally in the anti-India sense, cooperation has been reinforced with the building of nuclear power plants. Pakistan's relationship with the United States, however, is increasingly difficult. And anti-American sentiment is widespread in part because, in Pakistani territory, the activity of the CIA is partially independent from the national authorities, and attacks continue by American drones against Afghan Taliban and members of al-Qaeda in western Pakistan.
Moreover, the religious extremists have infiltrated the armed forces and the secret service, which support the Afghan Taliban but are in conflict with part of the Pakistani Taliban, coordinated in turn with the jihadists who are fighting for the annexation of Indian Kashmir into Pakistan. The constellation of extremist groups is broad and nebulous. Behind the screen of educational and charitable activities, their recruitment is reinforced in the madrassas, the Qur'anic schools, and in the camps for Afghan refugees or for those who were displaced after the flooding of last summer. Moreover, the armed forces have a strong veto power over the government; but they do not seem disposed to a state coup, perhaps of Islamist inspiration, because the solution of the country's social and economic problems is out of their reach, and the commanders don't want to risk unpopularity. Unfortunately, the government and the judiciary often seem to have capitulated in the face of interference by the extremists and by the Pakistani secret service. The anti-blasphemy law, in its various applications, justifies political terror and discourages the Pakistani liberals. The moderate Muslims are crushed by the authority of the armed forces, by religious fanaticism, and by the interference of foreign countries when they favor corruption, abuse of power, and crimes against human rights, like torture. So social claims are becoming the prerogative of the fundamentalists, but they do not have the cultural, technological, and bureaucratic tools to resolve the country's problems of chronic economic underdevelopment.
Intimidation and the impunity of extremist violence and of military retaliation are the hinges upon which Pakistan's chaos hangs. The fragile national identity itself would be in danger of evaporating if these two practices were to guide the material constitution of the country. Moreover, although this is unlikely, one cannot rule out that the growing anarchy in Pakistan might permit jihadist groups to acquire nuclear material and weapons, not all of which seems to be accounted for by the United States. Pakistan is the most appetizing morsel for al-Qaeda, which is ideologically fostering domestic extremism, stating that the civil government of Islamabad is illegitimate because it is irreligious, and should be destroyed. Thus, unfortunately, the executive and the PPP seem to be hostages of the fundamentalist parties and the extremists.
*
Nonetheless Paul Bhatti, the murdered man's brother, has been appointed the prime minister's special advisor for religious minorities. If in the "Land of the pure" is to arrive what remains of the Arab "democratic spring," the new Pakistani social pact, to block the spiral of self-destruction, requires the rapid reestablishment of a functioning criminal judicial system. This necessarily includes the radical reform of the anti-blasphemy law, which justifies the extrajudicial use of violence, including against those who convert from Islam. In the medium to long term, it is indispensable to have a public educational system that is universal and open to a more modern education, partly to build valid occupational skills. New ideas of justice and accurate reconstructions of the country's history can capitalize on the richness of the multiform Pakistani people. This requires that public spending not be drained in a disproportional way by military spending, and that peace with India and in Afghanistan be seen as necessary for the sustainable development of Pakistan. What is underway in the country is not a religious but a political conflict, with the risk of civil war. And interreligious dialogue is impotent when one religion is used as an instrument of power, of oppression, and of underdevelopment.

Living in Secret in Saudi Arabia

Interview With Scholar on Churches in the Middle East

Photo Source: CancerShrine Blog
ROME, APRIL 4, 2011 (EWTN / Zenit.org).- Saudi Arabia is considered holy ground by the Muslim majority who live there. Hence, Christians and even Muslims of other sects, face severe restrictions.

Christians make up only about 3% of the population, but they have no churches and never display their faith in public.

Professor Camille Eid, a journalist, author, professor at the University of Milan and expert on the Churches of the Middle East, spoke about the Saudi Arabia situation with the television program "Where God Weeps" of the Catholic Radio and Television Network (CRTN) in cooperation with Aid to the Church in Need.

Q: Saudi Arabia is a hereditary monarchy based on the foundation of Wahhabi Islam. What is this branch of Islam?
Eid: Wahhabism is a new doctrine of Islam. Its founder is Abd-al Wahhab, who was a religious scholar of Hanafi Islam, which is the strictest doctrine of Islam. He decided that all innovations -- "Bida" is the term in Arabic -- in Islam should be eliminated. A visit to a cemetery for instance is considered a bida-innovation and is prohibited. You cannot do anything that the Prophet Mohammed and his companions did not do. So the alliance between the followers of Wahhabi and the prince of Najd in central Arabia created the birth of this Saudi Arabian kingdom. Saudi Arabia takes its name from the Saud family. This house of Saud alliance with the Wahhabi sect is still true today and the successors of the kingdom follow this strict instruction and doctrine of Wahhabism; the laws of the kingdom follow the strict guidelines of Wahhabism.

Q: What about the Shia?
Eid: The Shia make up almost 10% of the population and they face much discrimination. They are concentrated mainly in the eastern part of the kingdom. There is another sect of the Shia, the Ismaili, and they are very near the Yemeni border. The kingdom and its leadership subscribe to Wahhabism.

Q: The Quran is Saudi Arabia’s constitution. What position does the Quran or this constitution take toward non-Muslims?
Eid: The Quran distinguishes between Christians and Jews, and other unbelievers. Christians and Jews are called the “People of the Book,” or the books if you want -- the Gospel and the Torah. Sometimes in the Quran, Christians are described in a very positive way. The Christian monarch and priests pray. But, during the second period in the Prophet’s revelation, Christians are described as unbelievers and [it's said they] should pay the "Jizya," the tax necessary to be protected in an Islamic society. There seems to be a contradiction in the book itself. That is why we have a liberal and a violent Islam. The violent Islam is a result of the second revelation that occurred during the last reign of Mohammed and as a result the current Islamic societies state that the events of the second revelation should be followed and not the previous revelations, which are more tolerant.

Q: The government is built on the principles of Sharia. What is Sharia?
Eid: Sharia is the summa of the Quran, the Hadith, which are the statements of Mohammed, and other sources such as the Ishma, which is the consensus of all Islamic scholars (Ulema). Sharia Law is taken from all these.

Q: All residents who live in Saudi Arabia are subjected to the law of Sharia?
Eid: All residents are subjected to this law and you cannot object because it is tantamount to objecting to Islam. Upon arrival at the airport you are informed immediately that you are to abide by the strict Islamic laws. I as a Christian, for instance, had a Pepsi in my hand during Ramadan. I noticed that everybody was looking at me in a certain way and they could have beaten me. You cannot eat outside or in public during the fast. You can only eat in secret. So you have to observe the fast even if you are not Muslim because that is the law.

Q: Christians constitute the biggest non-Muslim group in Saudi Arabia. How do Christians live their faith in Saudi Arabia?
Eid: In secret. It is forbidden to have Bibles, religious images and rosaries; if they are detected at the airport they are immediately confiscated. There was an instance when I was at the Jeddah Airport with a videocassette and they asked to view this cassette. The video was about Spartacus. I was suddenly fearful that they would see the image of the crucifixion. The guard eventually allowed it because it was a soldier being crucified and not Jesus Christ. ... It is hard. They say that Christians can pray privately but what does private mean? Does it mean alone or with your family? When more than two, or a group of families, are praying together in the privacy of their home the religious police can come in and intervene and arrest them.

Q: What happens to the Christian that is caught with a rosary in their pocket or wearing a cross?
Eid: If it is in a pocket nobody can see it. If, however you are seen wearing a cross, any Muslim -- and not just the police -- can take it away. You will be arrested and risk expulsion from the kingdom. They will haul you to prison and after a few days you will be issued an exit visa. It will be over for you.

Q: What other kind of Christian activities are punishable by law?
Eid: All public manifestation of any faith other than Islam is punishable. They do know that the Americans, French and Italians celebrate the Mass for Christmas and Easter inside the embassies but because the embassy is extra-territorial, the law does not apply. The police, however, are around to monitor. There are no churches, synagogues or temples in the kingdom. All manifestations of other faiths are prohibited.

Q: Who enforces the law?
Eid: You have 5,000 religious police divided among 100 districts, but any Muslim can enforce the law by denouncing the individual. I spent two and half years in Jeddah; I was afraid to extend the Easter and Christmas greetings even via phone because I was afraid that someone might be listening. The religious police control everything including the bookshops because it is prohibited to sell any card with non-Muslim themes. Some years ago in the American school, a Santa Claus was almost arrested but he managed to escape through a window. It is prohibited.

Q: Are Christians a particular target of persecution or discrimination?
Eid: Not just Christians but the non-Wahhabi versions of Islam such as the Shia or Ismaili. Not all Christian communities suffer equally. American, Italian, French and British -- in fact most Europeans and other First World countries -- suffer less because they know that these countries are powerful and will intervene immediately to protect their citizens. So they target the Christians of the Third World like Eritrea, India and the Philippines. These countries fear the loss of revenue from their citizens living in the kingdom. So they target the Christians of these weaker Third World countries.

Q: It has been said that Filipino maids have been accused of communicating the faith to the children of the wealthy Saudis that employ them. Do you know anything about this?
Eid: The Islamic catechism talks about the risk of communicating faith. The Saudi version states: “When you go abroad you should not develop a relationship or friendship with your professors because you should remember that they are infidels." This criterion also applies to the Filipino women in Saudi Arabia. Any communication can only occur by testimony not by words.

Q: Only through witness?
Eid: Only through witness and that is why they have suggested substituting Filipinos, or Christian women in general, with Egyptian, Moroccan or Algerian women so that they cannot communicate the faith to the children.

Q: We have talked about discrimination. We have talked about persecution. How far can this persecution go?
Eid: To death. We have a case of the martyrdom of a Saudi girl who converted to Christianity. Her brother discovered her. She wrote a poem to Christ and she had her tongue cut, she disappeared and was later found dead. Her name was Fatima Al-Mutairi and this happened in August of 2008. In 2008 two cases of raids by the religious police saw men, women and children less than 3 years old arrested. We have many reports of torture; before they are deported to their country these Filipinos, Indians and Eritreans are tortured by the police in the prisons.

Q: You mentioned the case of Fatima who converted to Christianity. What is the number of Muslims converting? Do you have any information or is it impossible to know?
Eid: It is not possible. Saudi society is difficult to penetrate because the regime monitors every activity. Sometimes you notice this from the women’s perspective. When these Saudi women go abroad, even upon entry in the airplane, they remove the hijab. In Lebanon and other countries they drink alcohol. When they return to their country they know that that have to abide by the laws.

Q: … and converts?
Eid: Christian converts do exist. I follow the Arabic media channels, which broadcast to Saudi Arabia and the whole Arab world, and during the transmission many calls originate from Saudi Arabia. Those converts who travel to Morocco and Egypt talk about their experience but do not mention their names and request only that the Christian community pray for them because they desire to see the day when they will be allowed to go to a church, to be able to have access to the Gospels and to be able to share their new faith with their own family. If a convert informs his/her brother or father of his/her new faith, he or she faces the danger of being charged with treason by the family; a treason not only of one’s family but also to the nation and society in general. Apostasy is a question of honor and as such it is considered treason.

Q: Professor Samir Khalil Samir, an Egyptian Quran scholar, stated that within the Quran, there is no obligation to kill an apostate. Where does this expression of violence come from?
Eid: Exactly. In the 14th [book] of the Quran there is talk about apostasy but there is no talk of a penalty in this life but rather in the second life. This change comes from the Hadith of Mohammed in which he said that whomever changes religion should be killed. But a problem again arises from this, because with the thousands of Hadith, there is no proof that Mohammed actually said this. Many Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran and Yemen, and so on, apply the death penalty based on a Hadith that can't be a hundred percent proven that it is from Mohammed.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the lay Catholics living in Saudi Arabia?
Eid: It is hard to be a lay Catholic in Saudi Arabia because you have to have a very deep background in your faith. You cannot have copies of the Gospel in your home. You cannot have a rosary. You cannot have contact with your Christian friends as a community; you can have Christian friends, you can frequent the foreign communities but you are prohibited from talking about your faith. So the only possibility is to have a strong awareness and knowledge of your faith that you can bank on in this environment. In other Islamic countries Friday is a holiday so Mass as a community [is allowed], but not on Sunday because Sunday is considered a working day; but even this is not the case in Saudi Arabia. So you are a community by yourself. Usually you do not even have your own family because Saudi Arabia has restrictions on family reunification. If you have a daughter who is more than 18 years of age, she cannot stay in Saudi Arabia if she is not married. So most have their families somewhere else. So you are alone and with no contact to other Catholics, which is very hard, and so you have to have the strength of faith in your heart; to be able to pray with out the prayer books, to just know and pray the prayers you have learned by heart from your childhood.

* * *

This interview was conducted by Mark Riedemann for "Where God Weeps," a weekly TV; radio show produced by Catholic Radio & Television Network in conjunction with the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need.
 

Brother of assassinated Pakistani minister asks for pope's help in Pakistan

2011-04-10 07:00:00 - Video

April 10, 2011. (Romereports.com) Paul Bhatti is the brother of Shahbaz Bhatti, who was the first Christian to serve as a minister for the government of Pakistan. Shahbaz was gunned down by Islamic extremists on March 2 for his stance against the country's blasphemy law and his support of Asia Bibi, the woman who has been sentenced to death for violating this law.

Paul says that his family has forgiven his brother's killers because forgiveness is what the Christian faith teaches. And he hopes that the life of Shahbaz will be remembered for his work in promoting peace.

Paul Bhatti
Chairman of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance
“He is not only martyred for Christianity, he is martyred for the humanity because he was fighting for the basic human rights. And he had been helping many non-Christian people also when they were under difficulty. So his message of his efforts was that for the persons who need peace.”

Paul Bhatti recently traveled to Rome to meet with different religious leaders and to remember the death of his brother.

They discussed the best way to arrive at a peaceful solution over the blasphemy law and the best way to move forward in a country where tension over religion has often resulted in violence in the past.

Syed Muhammad Abdul Khabir Azad
Grand Imam Badshahi Mosque, Lahore (Pakistan)
“Yes I do admit that unfortunately there are some people who are not Muslim, they do not represent Islam, and they are creating problems for the people and citizens of Pakistan and distorting the image of Pakistan in the world.”

Msgr. Joseph Coutts
Bishop of Faisalabad (Pakistan)
“I mean changes don´t come suddenly. An event like this does influence the course of events and such a tragic incident that struck the whole country. We've got to build on that, we've got to take it forward really, I don´t see the change coming by itself and I don´t see it coming so soon.”

Paul Bhatti and the Grand Imam from Lahore, Pakistan met with Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Bhatti asked the pope to continue supporting the Christians of Pakistan, saying that the biggest problem they face is a lack of religious freedom due to the blasphemy law.

Bhatti was recently named as the chairman to Pakistan's All Minority Alliance and hopes to carry on his brother's work of fighting for the freedom of religion.

Paul Bhatti
Chairman of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance
“The message of his efforts was that for the persons who need peace, who need their own rights, who need their freedom, who need freedom of expression in society. So as the Christian community was more victimized by that, he worked more for that reason.”

The assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti has left a tragic mark on the people of Pakistan. It's a mark that the Bhatti family hopes will remind others of the message of peace between all people that to which Shahbaz committed his life.

AE; EP/CTV; -HC; -BN
 

Thousands of Christians Displaced in Ethiopia After Muslim Extremists Torch Churches, Homes
By Diane Macedo

Published March 24, 2011  FoxNews.com

International Christian Concern
Remains of burned down Kale Hiwot church in Asendabo, Ethiopia.

Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes in Western Ethiopia after Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.
At least one Christian has been killed, many more have been injured and anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 have been displaced in the attacks that began March 2 after a Christian in the community of Asendabo was accused of desecrating the Koran.
The violence escalated to the point that federal police forces sent to the area two weeks ago were initially overwhelmed by the mobs. Government spokesman Shimelis Kemal told Voice of America police reinforcements had since restored order and 130 suspects had been arrested and charged with instigating religious hatred and violence.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said the Islamist group Kawarja is believed to have incited the violence.
"We believe there are elements of the Kawarja sect and other extremists who have been preaching religious intolerance in the area,” he said at a Saturday press conference. “In previous times, we have cracked down on Kawarja because they were involved in violence. Since then they have changed their tactics and they have been able to camouflage their activities through legal channels."
The string of attacks comes on the heels of several reports of growing anti-Christian tension and violence around the country where Muslims make up roughly one-third of the total population but more than 90 percent of the population in certain areas, 2007 Census data shows.
One of those areas is Besheno where, on November 9, all the Christians in the city woke up to find notes on their doors warning them to convert to Islam, leave the city or face death, a Christian from Besheno told FoxNews.com on condition of anonymity.
“Under the Ethiopian constitution we are supposed to have freedom of religion, but Muslim leaders in our town don’t allow us that right,” the source said.
Later that month three Christians in Besheno were assaulted in religiously-motivated attacks and three others were forced to flee the city after being told that Muslim leaders had commissioned hit men to kill them, one of the exiled Christians told FoxNews.com.
“We were told by some Muslims that live in the city that there was already a plan to kill us and that the people who were assigned to kill us had already come from another city to do it.”
A witness to the three attacks was then assaulted in January after testifying about them in court, International Christian Concern (ICC), an organization that aims to fight Christian persecution, reported.
In the southern town of Moyale, a Christian was sentenced to three years in prison in November for allegedly writing "Jesus is the Lord" in a copy of the Koran, Compass Direct News reported. Christians from the area told the website he had actually written the phrase on a piece of cloth.
Sources also told Compass authorities had offered to release the man, Tamirat Woldegorgis, if he would convert to Islam, but he refused.
Additionally, two of his friends were fined for visiting him in prison and taking him food, Compass Direct reported.
And in Oma Village on February 26 a Muslim mob with rocks and rods assaulted and wounded 17 Christian college students who were distributing Bibles during a mission trip, ICC reported.
The mob overwhelmed government security forces that attempted to protect the students, but the students eventually fled, the ICC website said.
"The violence against Christians in Ethiopia is alarming because Ethiopian Muslims and Christians used to live together peacefully. Besides, it’s extremely disconcerting that in Ethiopia, where Christians are the majority, they are also the victims of persecution," Jonathan Racho, ICC's Regional Manager of Africa and South Asia, told FoxNews.com.
Meles said that the government is doing everything it can to stop religious violence.
"We knew that they were peddling this ideology of intolerance, but it was not possible for us to stop them administratively because they are within their rights," he said. "If we can find some association between what they are doing by way of preaching and what happened by way of violence, then of course we can take them to court."
Racho, originally from Ethiopia, said the fact that the government waited a full week before sending troops to Asendabo shows that it’s not doing enough. Going forward, he said he hopes the government "will take measures to ensure that such attacks will not happen in the future," including bringing all responsible parties to justice to show this will not be tolerated.
"The Ethiopian government has arrested around 130 of the perpetrators, and we hope they will be prosecuted according to the law."
 

Pope launches urgent appeal for an end to use of weapons in Libya

From Radiovaticana - Audiences & Angelus >  27/03/2011

Following the midday Angelus prayer this Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI launched the following urgent appeal:
"Faced with the increasingly dramatic reports from Libya, my trepidation for the safety and security of civilians and my concern for the unfolding situation, currently signed by the use of arms, is growing. In times of greatest tension, the need to put to use all means available to diplomacy becomes increasingly urgent and to support even the weakest signs of openness and willingness on both sides involved, for reconciliation in search of peaceful and lasting solutions. In view of this, as I lift my prayer to the Lord for a return to harmony in Libya and the entire North African region, I also appeal to the international bodies and all those in positions of military and political responsibility, for the immediate start of dialogue and the suspension of the use of weapons”.
"Finally, my thoughts turn to the authorities and citizens of the Middle East, where in recent days there have been several incidents of violence, so that the path of dialogue and reconciliation be privileged in the search for a just and brotherly coexistence".
 
 

Muslims Attack Christian in Egypt, Cut Off His Ear
Posted GMT 3-26-2011 3:38:45
2011, Assyrian International News Agency. By Mary Abdelmassih

(AINA) -- A group of Muslims attacked Ayman Anwar Mitri, a 45 year old Christian Coptic man in the Upper Egyptian town of Qena, cutting off his ear. The Muslims claimed they were applying Sharia law because Mr. Mitri allegedly had an illicit affair with a Muslim woman. The Muslims called the police and told them "We have applied the law of Allah, now come and apply your law," according to Mr. Mitri in an interview for the Egyptian Human Rights Organization.
Mr. Mitri, a low grade administrator at a secondary school, from elHasweya, in Qena, 492 KM from Cairo, had rented his flat to two Muslim sisters, Abeer and Sabrin Saif Al-Nasr, through an agent. After nine months he learned the sisters had been indicted for prostitution, so he asked them to leave and they did.
On Sunday, March 20 Mr. Mitri was informed by a friend via a phone call at 4 AM that the flat where the Muslim sisters lived was on fire; he went to the flat. While waiting in the torched flat a Muslim named Alaa el Sunni came and berated him for renting his flat to prostitutes. "I tried to calm him down," said Mr. Mitri, "and told him I knew nothing about the two women since they came through an agent." Alaa suggested they would go somewhere quiet to clear the misunderstanding. They went to the flat of Mr. Mitri's friend Khaled, a policeman, where 12 Muslims were waiting for him. They started beating him and saying "We will teach you a lesson, Christian" and "This serves your right for renting your property to prostitutes."
Believing this was the end of the episode, they asked him to call the Muslim woman, so that they would send her to her father. When the woman refused to come, they asked a female Muslim neighbor to call her, saying that her belongings are with her. The woman, Sabrin, came and was told to say that she had a relationship with Mr. Mitri. "At first the woman refused, but after being beaten, she agreed," said Mr. Mitri.
Remembering his ordeal, he said that they sat him on a chair and a Muslim named elHusseiny cut his right ear off. "I felt so shocked that I do not even know what tool he used." They also made a a 10cm cut at the back of his neck, cut his other ear, his face and his arm (video showing wounds). Mr. Mitri said they wanted to throw him off the fifth floor but Khaled objected, saying he would get into trouble for just being there, since he is a policeman.
Mr. Mitri said that the Muslims tried to convert him to Islam, but he refused. The Muslims then called the police and told them to come and get the Copt saying "We have applied the law of Allah, now come and apply your civil law."
The police came and rescued Mitri and Sabrin, who told the police the Muslims forced her to lie about the illicit relationship between her and Mitri. A police report was issued, but no arrests were made.
"I feel humiliated and broken," said Mr. Mitri. "I have lost the income from the torched flat, my car, and have become disfigured. Who is going to restore my honor?"
His wife said in an interview that she is ashamed to go to work and feels very unsafe. She is afraid to let the children go to school and is hoping to leave the area.
At first Mr. Mitri said he wanted full compensation for his losses and even wanted revenge by cutting off the ear of the Muslim who cut his ear off. However, it was reported that a "reconciliation" meeting was made in the presence of Colonel Ahmed Masood, Vice military ruler of Qena, whereby Ayman Mitri and the Muslims came to an "agreement." Mr. Mitri had to withdraw the police report he filed against the Muslims.
Mr. Mitri appeared on the Coptic TV channel CTV, where he was asked about the reason he agreed to reconcile and forfeit his rights. Mitri said while sobbing "I was threatened, they threatened to kidnap the female children in our family."
Anba Kirollos, Bishop of Nag Hammadi, called on the armed forces to intervene and put an end to this "thuggery in the name of religion" so that this "infection" does not spread to other areas. He said if thuggery is put above the law the dignity and prestige of the State would be lost.
 

03/23/2011 08:45
PAKISTAN
Two Christians gunned down by armed Muslims outside Church in Pakistan

The attack took place in Hyderabad. Two others were seriously injured. A group of Muslims were bothering women as they entered the Church resulting in an argument, during which the attackers opened fire on the Christians. Police have not arrested any of the attackers who still roam free.
Karachi (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Two Christians were gunned down and two others are in serious condition after young Muslims attacked them outside a church in Hyderabad on the evening of March 21. Christians living in Camp Hurr, in Hyderabad, in Sindh, were celebrating the 30th anniversary of the founding of their church and the Salvation Army when a group of young Muslims gathered outside the church, playing loud music and annoying the Christian women who entered the church.
Younis Masih, 47, Siddique Masih, 45, Jameel Masih, 22, and a youth named Waseem came out of a church to ask the Muslims to respect the people and place. An argument ensued.  Shortly afterwards the Muslims returned armed with guns. Witnesses say that Muslims opened fire immediately, killing him instantly Younis Masih and Jameel Masih, and seriously injuring the other two Christians, who were transported to hospital in Karachi. Younis Masih leaves a wife and four children; Jameel only married a month ago.
The attitude of the authorities has exacerbated the Christians. Jameel's mother, Surraya Bibi, says: "The police acted as if it was not important. They didn’t file the report until late at night when we blocked the main road of Hyderabad, with the two dead bodies for several hours". So far police have not arrested any of the accused, who are still at large. They instead arrested some teenagers who are not involved in the crime.
.
Anglican conversion to Catholic Church swells
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
By Speroforum

About 900 members of the Church of England have taken the first step toward becoming Catholics, the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales declared in a March 15 statement. The former Anglicans participated in a Rite of Election, the first step toward confirmation, over the March 12-13 weekend, the church said. Those embracing the Catholic Church will be joining the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, established by Pope Benedict XVI to receive Anglicans who have felt isolated since the Church of England decided in 1992 to ordain women to the priesthood.
Tensions have grown as the governing General Synod of the Anglican Church moves to allow women to become bishops while denying any specific protection for traditionalists. Converts joining the ordinariate will be allowed to keep some Anglican liturgy and traditions. The largest number, some 240, were reported in the Diocese of Brentwood east of London, followed by 167 in the south London diocese of Southwark and 100 in the central city of Birmingham. Converts included 61 former Church of England priests. "I am greatly encouraged that these people will be received into the Catholic Church at Easter as members of the Ordinariate," said Rev. Keith Newton, the priest in charge of the new group.
Each year those preparing to join the Catholic Church are invited to attend the Rite of Election. It is usually presided over by the Bishop and inaugurates the final period of preparation before being received into the Church near the end of Lent. The Rite of Election is an important part of a process called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) which is designed to support adults attracted by Christ and his teaching. In the months leading up to the Rite of Election it is usual for small groups to meet weekly to pray together and to find out more about the Catholic Faith.
The Church of England has 22,000 clergy and claims 1.7 million active members in the United Kingdom. In England and Wales, there are 25 million nominal Anglicans whereas there are reportedly 4.2 million Catholics. Catholic parishes are growing, having had their congregations swell with arrival of Continental immigrants and British converts.
Pope Benedict XVI caused a shock wave among Catholics and Anglicans when in October 2009 he gave them very late notice of his announcement that he was creating the ordinariate. The ordinariate takes its name from an 11th-century vision by a woman in Walsingham in eastern England, who was led by the Virgin Mary in spirit to Nazareth to see the place where the New Testament says an angel told Mary she would bear a son.
Bishop John Broadhurst, the shepherd of the Anglican Diocese of Fulham Diocese, and leader of the traditionalist group Forward in Faith, as well as a small St. Peter’s Anglican parish in Folkestone have decided to convert because they object to moves in the Church of England to allow women bishops. Bishop Broadhurst accused the Church of England’s governing body, the General Synod, of acting in a ‘fascist way” by “marginalizing those who have been opposed to women’s ordination.” He plans to resign by the end of 2001, adding “I am not retiring, I am resigning,” he added. “I expect that I will enter the ordinariate when it is established.”

Following a public meeting in January 2011, many in the congregation of St. James the Great, in Albert Hill, Darlington, decided to join the Ordinariate. Father Ian Grieves, priest at St. James, who had already declared his plans to leave the Anglo-Catholic church, said it justified his decision. Father Keith Newton, a former Anglican bishop who was ordained as a Catholic priest to head the Ordinariate, addressed the congregation afterwards.
Fr. Grieves said that in the month since, dozens of people had decided to take up the offer to join the worldwide Catholic Church. They are expected to be among the second wave of Anglicans across the United Kingdom to leave the church on Ash Wednesday next year. They will spend Lent preparing to convert before joining the Ordinariate in Holy Week. St. James the Great has been an Anglo-Catholic church for more than 100 years. Fr. Grieves has been at the church for 22 years, increasing the number of followers from only 18, and helping to fund hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of improvements to the church. However, the future of the church building and members of the congregation who do not defect remain unclear. The congregation may need a new church and Fr. Grieves a new home.
Ash Wednesday marked the beginning of the exodus in both Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells as worshippers opted instead to celebrate their first mass at Catholic churches.
In Tunbridge Wells, Father Ed Tomlinson led 70 worshipers to join St. Anselm’s Roman Catholic Church in Pembury leaving a congregation of just 15 at his former church St. Barnabas. Father Tomlinson said "The big day for us was Sunday when we said goodbye. Wednesday was the beginning of Lent and we are joining with the Catholic Church to celebrate that." He described this week as a "very quiet, tentative first-step" towards preparing to convert to the Ordinariate during the upcoming Holy Week.
"It makes its viability very difficult," Father Tomlinson said. "One of the really sad things is that I proposed to the Church of England we might share the building and work together, but the Church of England has been a bit sore about that so we’re leaving with nothing.” He added, "It is a beautiful building. We’ve not changed what we teach, what has changed is the wider Church of England, who want to worship in a new and different way, which is why in the end it was an easy decision for us because it was a matter of integrity and standing up for what we believe in."
In an 2010 interview, Father Tomlinson said: "Certainly it is fair to say that it would be very difficult for anyone with genuine Catholic convictions to stay, although some may try and do that for the time being. Catholicism in the Church of England is dead beyond a generation. People could stay and enjoy the last few years or could make a radical decision in the short term that would guarantee a better future."
More than 4,700 people of various faiths and Christian faith communities gathered in cathedrals across England and Wales this past weekend as part of their preparation to be received into the Catholic Church.

Pope calls on leaders to protect, allow aid for civilians in Libya
(CNS/Paul Haring)

By Carol Glatz - Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI made an urgent appeal to political and military leaders to protect the safety and security of civilians and guarantee the free flow of humanitarian aid inside Libya.

He said the "worrying news from Libya" in the past few days caused him "deep trepidation and fear," and he kept the North African country's people in his prayers during his Lenten retreat March 13-19.
Speaking to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square March 20 for the recitation of the Angelus, the pope said, "I address a pressing appeal to those who have political and military responsibilities" to ensure the safety and security of defenseless citizens as well as guarantee those offering emergency assistance have access to those in need.
As U.S., British and French military began a series of strikes against Libya's air defenses March 19 as part of a U.N.-approved effort to protect pro-democracy protesters from retaliation by Col. Moammar Gadhafi, the pope said he was following the events with great concern and praying for those involved in "the dramatic situation."
He prayed that "peace and concord would soon reign over Libya and the entire North African region."
Meanwhile, Bishop Giovanni Martinelli of Tripoli, Libya, criticized the rash and hasty decision to use military action against Gadhafi rather than pursue a negotiated solution.
"I hope for (Gadhafi's) surrender, but I think that Gadhafi will not give in," he told the Italian news agency, ANSA, March 20.
The bishop said he is familiar with the Libyan leader's personality and past behavior and believes the use of military force against him will only intensify the severity of Gadhafi's reaction.
He said allowing foreign troops to launch a military offensive against Gadhafi "has given the go-ahead to the wrong strategy;" he said more could have been done in seeking a diplomatic or negotiated solution to the crisis.
"Violence only brings violence," he said.
The Italian bishop said he had been working to mediate the crisis through a Libyan-funded interreligious organization called the World Islamic Call Society, but that the launch of military strikes cut short his attempts.
"The military action was too hasty, too sudden," he said.
ishop Martinelli told Fides, news agency of the Vatican's Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, March 21, "War does not solve anything."
"We need to cease shooting immediately and begin mediation straight away to resolve the crisis peacefully. Why have diplomatic means not been considered?" he said.
He told both ANSA and Fides that he had been hearing explosions and that people were fleeing the capital, but he said he was not leaving Tripoli.
"This is my home," he told ANSA, and the church is an important point of reference for the Christians in Libya, many of whom are refugees from Eritrea or workers from the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa.
He told Fides that he was working to help Eritrean refugees trapped in Libya get to the border of Tunisia.
He said he "spoke with the bishop of Tunis to see if they can accept them, given that on their side of the border there are international humanitarian aid organizations."
 

Pakistani Christians convert to Islam because of threats and intimidations
PAKISTAN
by Aoun Sahi*

This is the rate is 60 per month. In one madrassa in Lahore alone, 678 Christians embraced Islam in 2009. Last year they were almost 700. These are “dangerous days” minorities, activists say as the blasphemy law is used to force them to change religion.

Lahore (AsiaNews/TNS) – On a sunny afternoon in the second week of February 2011, 45-year-old Azra Bibi, clad in black shawl, entered the reception of Jamia Naeemia with her ten year old son, a leading Sunni-Barelvi madrassa situated in a congested area of Lahore. Accompanied by a 45-year-old Muslim witness Chaudhry Muhammad Islam, Azra a recent convert to Islam along with her six children asked for the imam of the Jamia. She has come here to get proper documents to prove in the court that she was no longer a Christian.
The young receptionist at Jamia Naeemia talks to the principal on telephone opens the side drawer of his dented metal table and pulls out a two-inch-thick book wrapped in a blue cover. He finds a blank page and starts writing her details.
The book is a registry used to keep record of religious conversions to Islam. One book is enough to record 100 cases of conversions. A newly built wooden cabinet brimming with many such books is used to store the record. Officials at the Madrassa say the number of people converting from other religions, especially Christianity, to Islam is on the rise here. At least 50 to 60 Christians embrace Islam each month by signing a white and green paper on the book declaring that they accept Islam without any greed or pressure and promise to ‘remain in the religion of Islam for the rest of the life’, and will try to spend life according to the principles of Islam.
Raghib Naeemi, Principal Jamia Naeemia, says that his institute has no department for preaching. “All those who convert to Islam come to Jamia on their own, accompanied by some Muslims of their locality as witnesses. We have made it a prerequisite for the aspirant converts to submit an affidavit declaring that they are embracing Islam without greed or force.” He says that all Christians who convert to Islam do not do so because they like this religion. “Some of them convert to Islam because they want to end their marriage which is not easy in Christianity, or they want to marry a cousin or a Muslim girl or boy. Over 90 per cent of the converts are illiterate.”
The record at Jamia Naeemia reveals that 678 Christians converted to Islam in 2009, the number reached 693 in 2010 while 95 Christians have so far embraced Islam this year.
Badshahi Mosque is another institution that issues certificate to those who convert to Islam. Muhammad Yousuf, assistant protocol officer at the mosque, says rarely a day goes without some cases of conversion. “Sometimes dozens of people convert to Islam during a day. Overwhelming, majority of them come from Christian minority,” he tells TNS.
Peter Jacob, Executive Director of National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), an advocacy organisation funded by the Catholic Church, says it is no surprise some of Pakistan’s three millions Christians are adopting Islam nowadays. “These are troublesome and dangerous days for the country’s religious minorities. People have no faith in the police or the justice system and the kind of fear that exists now was never there before,” he says.
Legally, there is no bar on religious conversion. “But in Pakistan only one-way conversion to Islam is allowed that can be very fatal to religious diversity in the country. It is not only Christians in Pakistan who are scared. All minorities are under pressure.”
Jacob thinks that security has become a major reason for marginalised and discriminated Christian community to convert to Islam. “Blasphemy laws are also being misused to pressurise Christians to convert to Islam.”
Last month Shahbaz Bhatti, the only minister in federal cabinet belonging to a minority religion, was assassinated in Islamabad. Taliban reportedly claimed responsibility for the killing, saying the minister had been “punished” for being a blasphemer.
Azra Bibi—whose husband remains Christian and lives separately from his wife and children—says that she has converted to Islam only because she feels it is the most beautiful religion. “Now, it feels great and I have moved to a Muslim neighbourhood. I feel safer.” A woman from the neighbourhood comes to them daily after dinner to teach her and her children Islam and its practices.
That day at the Madrassa, as Azra Bibi collected her certificate declaring her a Muslim and prepared to leave, a young couple entered the reception. Parvaiz Masih, a 23-year-old auto rickshaw driver and his 22-year-old cousin Nasreen seemed in a hurry to convert to Islam. But the officials at Jamia were hesitant, as they did not have two Muslim witnesses accompanying them. “I like Islam and want to embrace it. I want to be known as Muhammad Parvaiz. I will be secure now and will take decisions of my choice after converting to Islam”.
Masih’s reference was her marriage to his cousin, Nasreen—who had slipped away from her home to come to Jamia with him. She was hesitant to elaborate why she wanted to convert to Islam. “I like Islam,” was all she said.
Joseph Francis, National Director, Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), believes that all these conversions are forced. “Jamia Naeemia or Badshahi Mosque officials do not look into the reasons why people have been converting to Islam. We have also found that in many cases young Christian girls are abducted and married off to Muslim men. They are also forced to change their religion and there is no process available to get them released as once they are declared Muslims, they cannot come back to Christianity.” He says his organisation had received seven such cases in 2008, four in 2009 and six in 2010.
The preamble to the constitution of Pakistan guarantees that adequate provision shall be made for minorities to freely profess and practice their religions and develop their culture. The Enforcement of Shariah Act 1991 was promulgated on June 18, 1991 whereby the Islamic Shariah was enforced as the supreme law of the land. But under clause 4 of Section 1, it was provided that “Nothing contained in this Act shall affect the personal laws, religious freedom, traditions, customs and way of life of the non-Muslims.”
But the situation on ground is altogether different. For instance, Tahir Iqbal, a Muslim who converted to Christianity was accused of committing blasphemy in 1990 in Lahore. Then additional session judge of Lahore dismissed his bail application on July 7, 1991, and passed the following order:
“Learned counsel for the petitioner has conceded before me that the petitioner has converted to Christianity. With this admission on the part of the petitioner’s counsel there is no need to probe further into allegations. Since conversion is in itself a cognizable offence involving serious implications, I do not consider the petitioner is entitled to bail at this stage”. Interestingly, there is no law in Pakistan that makes conversion from Islam to any other religion an offence.
Human Right activists say there is no mechanism to gauge whether the Christians converting to Islam have been doing it under their own free will or duress. “We receive many cases every year in which Christian girls are abducted and forced to marry Muslim men,” I.A. Rehman, Director Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, tells TNS. “Security is a major reason these days for minorities to convert to Islam. We have registered cases in which people are deprived of their jobs on the basis of their faith, admissions to colleges and schools are denied and then there are social taboos that result in discrimination. All these factors can lead to religious conversion.”

The Catholic Church agency, Aid to the Church in Need, estimates that 75% of all religious persecution around the world is directed against Christians. That equates to around 100,000 people facing persecution. The hard-hitting report will be launched in Scotland at St Rollox Church of Scotland by Cardinal Keith O’Brien and Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil in Iraq.

Speaking ahead of the launch yesterday Nather Eisa told how he was forced to flee to Scotland from Iraq with his family.
If I was rich and a Christian, they would come to my house during the night and steal everything
Mr Eisa, 46, a trained teacher, told how he was called a “little Christian rag” and received a death threat. His life was spared when his brother agreed to pay a bribe.
For the father-of-two it was one of many abuses that persuaded him to flee to London in 2002. Shortly afterwards he and his family were moved to Sighthill in Glasgow.
He believes he escaped the worst persecution in Iraq that followed the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, and has caused thousands more Christians to flee.
The last Iraqi census in 1987 showed the Christian population at 1.4 million. The Church in Iraq estimates that figure is now as low as 150,000.
“The problem started for Christian people in 1991 when sanctions were imposed by the United Nations,” said Mr Eisa. “Muslim people hated Christian people because America and Britain are Christian. They say to us Christians that we make the problems for them, but we say we are the same as them, we suffer the same.”
 While the family was still able to attend church at that time, security was heavy with up to 30 armed guards surrounding the church during worship. As people began to suffer financially in the early 1990s, Christians began their exodus from the larger cities.
Mr Eisa’s wife Aseel explained: “If I was rich and a Christian, they would come to my house during the night and steal everything. If you say anything you get killed. That’s happened for a few families.
“Now they kill people simply because they are Christian, they say it to your face.”
She said today Christians are too afraid to go into the city of Mosul. Her sister who is a student there has to wear a headscarf to appear Muslim. In the past she said she was shot at when she entered the college with a party of Christian students.
In 2004, another sister was forced from her home in Baghdad. “They took the house from her putting her and her family out – she had to stay with other family members for five years,” said Mrs Eisa.
But while the Eisa family is relieved to have escaped with their lives, they have found themselves at the receiving end of prejudice in this country.
“People here look at us and presume that we are Muslim. Even when we say that we are Christian, they think it is some obscure strand of Christianity,” Mrs Eisa said.
Daughter Lisa, 18, has settled into life here and is studying medicine at a Scottish university. She has little memory of Iraq, and was sheltered from much of the persecution by her parents.
In Glasgow, she attended a Catholic primary school and was struck by the tolerance shown to other religions.
She said: “Coming here, the way they treat people from other religions just makes me feel so proud to be Christian. I feel like that is what my religion teaches me; to love people who are different. That’s why I feel so attached to here, like I belong here.”
“I think people here should be aware that there are Christians in the world that fight to keep their religion – it would make them value their religion more.”
 

Egypt's military begins rebuilding burned Coptic church
From Reza Sayah, CNN Correspondent
March 13, 2011 -- Updated 1315 GMT (2115 HKT)

Thousands of Coptic Christians have protested outside the Egyptian state broadcast office for nine consecutive days.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- Egypt's military has started rebuilding a church burned down in an outbreak of unrest between Christian Copts and Muslims, a military official told CNN on Sunday.
The Shahedin Church in Helwan province south of Cairo, the capital, was burned earlier this month in what was believed to be a feud between a Muslim and Coptic family. Further clashes last Tuesday killed 13 Copts.
"The engineering department of the Egyptian Armed Forces has started to rebuild the church in Atfeeh today at the same exact location," Army spokesman Maj. Mohamed Askar said. "The Armed Forces will bear all expenses."
Meanwhile, thousands of Christians in Cairo have protested outside the offices of the Egyptian state broadcaster for nine consecutive days, demanding the rebuilding of the church and an end to what they call government persecution and discrimination.
The Egyptian military previously announced an investigation into the church burning and ensuing violence.
Tensions have increased this year between Egypt's Muslim majority and its Coptic minority.
A Coptic church in the town of Alexandria was bombed on New Year's Day, killing 23 people. The Palestinian Islamic Army, which has links to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for what was the deadliest attack on Christians in Egypt in recent times.
Ten days later, a gunman killed a Christian man and wounded five other Christians on a train in Egypt.
Also in January, a man was sentenced for his part in an attack on another Coptic church a year ago, Egypt's state-run Al Ahram newspaper reported.
About 9% of Egypt's 80 million residents are Coptic Christians. They base their theology on the teachings of the Apostle Mark, who introduced Christianity to Egypt, according to St. Takla Church in Alexandria, the capital of Coptic Christianity. The religion split with other Christians in the fifth century over the definition of the divinity of Jesus Christ.
 

Pope urges priests to preach on uncomfortable topics
By Alan Holdren

Rome, Italy, Mar 11, 2011 / 04:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Priests must not preach “Christianity 'a la carte'” and should be willing to approach even uncomfortable aspects of the Gospel, Pope Benedict said in a meeting with priests this week.
In a meeting with priests and religious from the Diocese of Rome on March 10, the Pope led a Scripture meditation as the “pastor of the pastors.”
He based the meditation - called a “lectio divina” (sacred reading) - on a chapter from the Acts of the Apostles in which St. Paul leaves the faithful in Ephesus with instructions on how to continue preaching the Gospel after his departure.
Paul's advice to be humble and vigilant in preaching the faith, to make themselves completely available in service to Christ and the Church, and prayerful as they protect their “flocks” are all relevant characteristics of priests nearly 2,000 years later, said the Pope.
He implored priests to show “full-time” fidelity to their vocation as priests, “being with Christ and being ambassadors of Christ.”
The Pope also called on priests today not to shrink from proclaiming “the entire plan of God.”
“This is important,” said the Pope. “The Apostle does not preach Christianity 'a la carte,' according to his own tastes, he does not preach a Gospel according to his own preferred theological ideas; he does not take away from the commitment to announce the entire will of God, even when uncomfortable, nor the themes he may least like personally.
“It is our mission to announce all the will of God, in its totality and ultimate simplicity. But the fact that we must instruct and preach is important - as St. Paul says - and really proposes the entire will of God.”
In a world where people are curious to know everything, “so much more should we be curious to know the will of God,” said Pope Benedict.
“What thing could be more interesting, more important, more essential for us than to know what God wants, to know the will of God, the face of God?”
He called on priests and religious to respond to this curiosity and awaken it in others, assisting them in “knowing truly all the will of God and knowing then how we can and must live, which is the path of our lives.”

Vatican condemns murder of Pakistani minister for minorities

Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic and Pakistan's minorities minister, poses in front of a mural at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops headquarters in Washington during a visit in 2009. He was murdered in Islamabad March 2. (CNS/Bob Roller))

By Sara Angle
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) --The Vatican condemned the killing of a Catholic government minister in Pakistan who had spoken out against anti-blasphemy laws.

"The assassination of the Pakistani minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, is a new and terribly serious act of violence. It demonstrates that the pope is correct in insisting on the issue of violence against Christians and against religious freedom in general," Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said March 2.
Bhatti, the first Catholic to serve in that position, received several threats against his life after criticizing the country's anti-blasphemy laws, which have been used to persecute Christians and other religious minorities.
Bhatti was received by Pope Benedict XVI last September and spoke about his commitment to promoting peaceful coexistence between the religious communities of his country.

"Along with prayers for the victim, with the condemnation of the unspeakable act of violence and with assurances of closeness to Pakistani Christians who are suffering from hatred, we urge that everyone will now realize the dramatic urgency of the need to defend religious freedom and Christians targeted by violence and persecution," Father Lombardi said.
Bhatti was attacked in his car in Islamabad March 2, when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle and proceeded to drag him out, according to press reports. Bhatti was immediately taken to the hospital, where doctors were unable to save him from massive gunshot wounds.

Reports said there may have been a young relative in the car with him, and there were conflicting reports on whether a bodyguard or government security officer was also present.
Bhatti usually traveled with security, but news reports said he may have requested to be unaccompanied March 2.
A note found at the crime scene led authorities to believe Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a radical Muslim group, was responsible for the murder, the Catholic agency AsiaNews reported.
After an emergency meeting led by Lahore Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha, president of the Pakistani Catholic bishops' conference, the country's Christian leaders urged the government to "go beyond the rhetoric of 'minorities enjoying all the rights in the country' and take practical steps to curb extremism in Pakistan."

"If the country becomes a killing field of the democrat and liberal individuals who exercise their freedom of conscience and expression, it would embolden the criminals trying to take charge of the country," the church leaders cautioned.
Beginning March 3, Christian churches across the country were to close for three days to honor Bhatti.
Since the Jan. 4 assassination of the governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, who defended a Christian woman accused of blasphemy, Bhatti had been one of the only public figures to speak out against the laws.
Despite threats, Bhatti continued promoting religious and social harmony.
Bishop Rufin Anthony of Islamabad-Rawalpindi told AsiaNews, "The minister lived under constant threat, and the government did not know how to adequately guarantee his safety."
Bishop Anthony knew Bhatti's daily routine, saying, "He would go to see his mother, he would pray with her, then he would call me and ask me every morning to pray for him."
The bishop was particularly affected by the murder because he knew Bhatti as a child and said he had been a devout Catholic from a very young age.
The bishop described him as "a courageous, fearless man who had taken a very strong position in support of minorities." The bishop believed that because Bhatti was so outspoken about minority rights "the minister paid the price with his blood."

Bhatti spoke at an event in Ottawa, Ontario, Feb. 7 and said, "I follow the principles of my conscience, and I am ready to die and sacrifice my life for the principles I believe."
 

Pope: Jews not to blame for death of Christ
The Pope has exonerated the Jewish people for the death of Christ, insisting that they must not be collectively blamed for his death

Since being elected pontiff in 2005, the German-born Benedict, who was forced to serve in the Hitler Youth during the war, has had a strained relationship with Jews Photo: AFP/GETTY
By Nick Squires, Rome 6:04PM GMT 02 Mar 2011

In a new study that he has written of Christ's life, "Jesus of Nazareth", Benedict XVI said those at fault were the small number of Jewish priests and leaders who called for Christ's crucifixion
The Roman Catholic Church has maintained for decades that Jews were not responsible for Christ's execution, most notably in 1965 with a document entitled "Nostra Aetate," but Benedict's book further underlines the Vatican's teaching.
While some of the Gospels refer to all Jewish people calling for Christ's crucifixion, it was in fact the "temple aristocracy," who demanded his crucifixion after his trial by Pontius Pilate, the Pope wrote.
In doing so he challenged interpretations of the Bible which have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews.
"St Matthew attributes the request for the crucifixion of Jesus to 'all the people'. But he cannot be stating a historical fact: how could the entire Jewish people have been present at this moment to call for the death of Jesus?" Benedict wrote.

"The historical reality appears in St John and St Mark. The true accusers were those circulating in the temple at the time (the priestly hierarchy)." The Vatican released extracts of the book, which will be published next week (March 10) in English and six other languages.
Since being elected pontiff in 2005, the German-born Benedict, who was forced to serve in the Hitler Youth during the war, has had a strained relationship with Jews.
In 2007, he dismayed Jewish groups by relaxing restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass, also known as the Tridentine rite, restoring to prominence a prayer for the conversion of Jews that is recited during Good Friday services of Easter Week.
Relations deteriorated further in January 2009 when Benedict lifted an ultra-traditionalist British bishop, who caused outrage by questioning the extent of the Holocaust, claiming that the Nazis killed at most 300,000 Jews.
 

Italy arrests Moroccans for inciting hatred of Pope
25 February 2011 Last updated at 11:04 GMT

Magdi Allam (left) was baptised in 2008

Six Moroccan men have been arrested in northern Italy on suspicion of seeking to incite hatred of Pope Benedict among Muslims.
Police in the city of Brescia said the suspects had allegedly banded together to stir up religious hatred.

A note was found calling for the Pope to be punished for converting a Muslim journalist to Roman Catholicism.
According to another source, the suspects are not suspected of planning attacks.
Five of the men, who are all Brescia residents, were placed under house arrest while the sixth was taken into custody.
The note found by police urges Muslim immigrants not to integrate into Italian society, Italian media report.

Police said the six were accused of "setting up a group that aimed to incite discrimination, racial and religious hatred, violence and jihad against Christians and Jews".
The Pope was condemned for converting Egyptian-born Magdi Allam, a former columnist for Italian daily Corriere della Sera. Mr Allam, an outspoken critic of Muslim militancy and strong supporter of Israel, was baptised by the Pope in March 2008.
 

 Europe’s stuttering timidity in denouncing the persecution of Christians
by Bernardo Cervellera

After nearly three weeks, finally a European text condemns the violations of religious freedom of Christians. The statement suffers from "excessive" balance and distance. The EU's inability to understand what is happening in North Africa and the Middle East is a result of its ignoring its Christian roots. Without a sense of identity the ability to read the situation or offer a way forward. The teaching of Benedict XVI.

Rome (AsiaNews) - After more than three weeks of debate, the EU has managed to produce a text that explicitly mentions Christians as victims of persecution and the object of violent attacks. An earlier text had been prepared in January, after the terrorist attack on the Church in Baghdad and the massacre at the Church in Alexandria, but was it rejected because of the lack of references to Christians, since the EU preferred to use generic term "religious minorities".

The new text approved yesterday explicitly mentions "Christians and their places of worship" victims of "acts of religious intolerance and discrimination," but now hastens to include among the victims of such acts "Muslim pilgrims and other religious communities" as well .

The Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, one of the promoters of the text, had condemned the draft as a sign of 'excessive secularism "present in the EU, but expressed satisfaction with the text adopted yesterday. Moreover, recalling that the European Constitution does not mention the Christian roots among the historic foundations of Europe, yesterday’s statement really is a gigantic departure.

Yet even this text does not satisfy in full. It seeks to balance the anti-Christian violence with those against other religious communities, in an "excess" of balance and equidistance, not taking into account that at least 70% of persecution in today’s world is carried out against Christians. Yet these impressive figures are the result of statistics (from the World Christian Encyclopedia to the Pew Research Centre) and not partisan reports, so much so that Pope Benedict XVI used the word "Christianophobia" for the first time in a papal speech  (see the speech Roman Curia on 20 December 2010. See: 12/20/2010 Pope: Future of the World Depends upon Rediscovery "of Truth and Goodness" and 22/12/2010 Benedict XVI and the Synod: dialogue and forgiveness in the face of violence).

Above all, the text approved by the EU does not go beyond some general exhortation on the defense of religious freedom as a universal human right that must be defended everywhere and for all. "

In stark contrast to the EU’s timid text, Benedict XVI's solid address to the diplomatic corps (10/01/2011 Pope: Religious freedom attacked by terrorism and marginalisation). Defending religious freedom for all religious traditions, the Pope addressed the governments demanding security and the repeal of unjust laws (such as the blasphemy law); room for free education; guarantees that the contribution of religious communities to society will be welcomed etc. ...

Europe’s stuttering timidity on religious freedom is underscored by the continents approximation and inanity faced with the riots taking place in North Africa and the Middle East. As an epochal change unfolds before our very eyes - with non-violent demands for justice, equality and democracy - the EU is ineptly concealing its remorse, calling for a "transition" while it secretly sheds tears over all the fabulous economic contracts drawn up with fallen dictators, null and void or hanging in the balance.

It is said that the world and Europe have been taken by surprise by the riots in Tunisia, Egypt, etc. .. We think that this blindness is due to the fact that in all these years, the sole motivation for our Europe’s relationship with these countries was its own its narrow economic interests and thus "stability", not a shared communication of values, attentiveness to social questions, dialogue between cultures and religions. In practice, Europe’s identity was its wallet: and little more.

Benedict XVI’s appeal during his papal journeys to France, the Czech Republic, Malta, the United Kingdom now echoes urgently in our ears: if Europe does not rediscover its Christian roots, it will remain silent in the concert of nations, incapable of identity and true friendships with the rest of the world.
 

The age of ageing
The proportion and sheer numbers of the elderly are unprecedented in the history of humanity.

Sunday, 27 February 2011

This strong statement comes from the Population Division of the United Nations, the global authority on population data and policies. In a little-noted document entitled World Population Ageing 2009 the report also stressed that population ageing is “pervasive, profound and enduring.” All countries are experiencing the same phenomenon. The economic and social consequences are extensive and the process will continue to unfold rapidly, especially in the more advanced countries. In 2009 according to UN data, 22 percent of the population in developed countries was aged 60 or over. That share is expected to rise to 33 percent in 2050. The elderly cohort now outnumbers children under 15 and by 2050 there are likely to be two over 60s for every child.

According to the UN, the number of older persons tripled in the past 60 years and will triple again by 2050. The “oldest old” -- aged 80 and over -- now account for four percent of global population. They are the most rapidly growing age group, with women surviving in greater numbers than men. An interesting anecdote: the American greeting card company Hallmark reported selling 85,000 birthday cards for centenarians in 2007.
Another recent UN publication dealing with population policies queried governments as to their primary population concerns. In response, 79 percent of governments in developed countries considered ageing “a major concern” followed by HIV/AIDS, low fertility, and “a small or declining number of persons of working age.” Data by continental area show an enormous contrast regarding the significance of population ageing, as indicated below:

It is stunning that all of North America is worried about population ageing as is most of Europe and Latin America. Africa, which only has 15 percent of global population, also has more countries with a high fertility rate and a low level of life expectancy. Oceania is sparsely populated.
According to UN data, there were 29 countries or territories that had 20 percent or more of their population aged 60 or over in 2009. Japan headed the list followed by European countries, although the US Virgin Islands were also in the group – which could be due to outsiders who chose to retire there. The top five besides Japan (29.7%) were Italy (26.4%), Germany (25.7%), Sweden (24.7%), and Bulgaria (24.2%). In 30th place came Canada (19.5%) while the United States (17.9%) ranked in 42nd place.

Among the 196 countries covered, there was a stark contrast between the countries above and those that had the lowest share of over 60s in their populations: Qatar (1.9%), United Arab Emirates (1.9%), Burkina Faso (3.3%), Sierra Leone (3.5%), and Niger (3.5%). The median age of countries also showed an extreme variance: Japan’s median age was 44.4 years, almost triple that of Niger at the bottom of the list with a mere 15 years.
Japan is the undisputed leader in ageing. At 82.3, Japan has the longest life expectancy – a tribute to good health, hygiene and local cuisine. With a shrinking population and hyper-ageing, the Japanese delegate at the 2011UN Commission for Social Development session mentioned in his statement that: “Japan has recently become a true ‘society of the aged.’ The proportion of the Japanese population aged 65 and over now exceeds 23 percent.”

The rapidly ageing Japanese population underlies a weak economic performance over the past two decades. The economy, which for many years seemed to have done everything right and was the envy of other nations, began to stall in the 1990s. This was due not only to a questionable combination of economic and financial policies but also due to a rapidly ageing population, a low birth rate and a reluctance to admit migrants from other countries to enhance the domestic labor force. The resulting economic stagnation, which led to “the lost decade,” as it has come to be called, seems to have extended well into the new millennium.
The top three ageing countries – Japan, Italy and Germany – among others have enacted or promoted measures to deal with the issue. Efforts have focused on removing incentives to early retirement, allowing older persons to work longer, increasing the statutory retirement age for both men and women, encouraging more women to enter the labor force, and efforts to strengthen pension systems.

Pension obligations are becoming more burdensome as the members of the baby boom generation reach retirement age. According to the OECD, pensioners in developed countries can expect to live 20.4 years in retirement. Japan’s public pension fund, the largest in the world with assets around $1.5 trillion is scrambling in search of higher returns to prepare for higher outlays – not unlike private pension funds. Meanwhile a shrinking number of workers face higher taxes to support public pension schemes.
For Japan, heightened government spending both in response to a long period of economic weakness and to meet growing pension obligations have resulted in an expansion of government debt that, in relation to GDP, is currently nearly twice that of Greece. The key mitigating element is that Japanese people have one of the highest savings rates in the world and much of those savings are placed in government securities. Unlike Greece, the vast majority of Japanese government debt is held domestically, including by the older population who undoubtedly have started drawing down these savings to maintain well being. Outliving one’s savings remains a risk everywhere.

On a social level, the elderly in developed countries are already beginning to experience the same fate as that of unwanted unborn children. Euthanasia is the elder equivalent of abortion. Both processes terminate life. One is a victim who never lived to be born and the other an individual who lived too long.
Even in Catholic Italy there is interest in legalized euthanasia (it has the second highest proportion of persons over 60 in the world). In 2006, a famous oncologist, Umberto Veronesi, wrote a short book that became a best-seller entitled Il Diritto di Morire (“The Right to Die”). (It has not been translated into English.) In it he argued that a patient who is seriously ill and on the verge of death forms a strong bond with his or her doctor that the latter can perceive the will of the patient, including the futility of advanced therapies and the desire to die with dignity.

Unfortunately for the eminent doctor, the “desire to die with dignity” does not mean waiting for God to call the patient to Himself. Dr. Veronesi is a non-believer who praises Belgium and the Netherlands, two of the European countries that have openly permitted euthanasia. In Italy, he may be highly regarded as a cancer specialist, but the deliberate taking of life is a bit much for most Italians, imbued with a sense of respect for the elderly and love for life itself. Germany and Japan, mindful of their role in World War II, are also unlikely to embrace the euthanasia lobby.
On a more positive note, the United Nations several years ago designated October 1 as the “International Day of Older Persons” and the European Union is promoting 2012 as the “European Year of Active Ageing.” However, in September each year Japan celebrates “Respect for the Aged Day.” The commemoration is a sign of esteem for and deference to elders and it so happens that Japan is destined to have many more seniors to be feted well out into the future.

Vincenzina Santoro is an international economist. She represents the American Family Association of New York at the United Nations
 

Amid violent protests, Catholic missionaries continue their work in Libya
By Alan Holdren

Libya
Tripoli, Libya, Feb 24, 2011 / 02:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As a swell of protestors and pro-government troops battle to establish control of Libyan cities, Catholic missionaries continue to carry out their work.

The nation's leader, Moammar Ghadafi, has come down hard on protesters who took to the streets in an appeal for greater liberty. Benghazi and other cities in the eastern half of the nation are reportedly now controlled by protesters with military backing.
Tripoli remains a hotspot for the conflict and international news agencies are reporting bombings and rampant killing. Confirmations of the true status of cities are scarce, as are open lines of communication.
Estimates of the dead vary from 1,000 to tens of thousands and there is talk that the clashes could escalate into civil war. Thousands of people, especially foreign nationals residing in Libya, are evacuating en masse. Some illegal African immigrants in Libyan jails are being forced by the pro-government troops to choose between becoming mercenaries or being killed, Father Mussie Zerai of the Italian Habeshia agency told MISNA news.
There are also reports that male immigrants are being abducted from their homes for possible mercenary service. Their possible role in mercenary service has made all immigrants targets for Ghadafi opponents.
The Italian bishops' SIR news reported that the Catholic Church is organizing for the evacuation of 500 illegal emigrants, largely Eritreans.
Catholic priests and religious are weathering the storm. Many religious sisters work in hospitals and are working overtime with casualties from the conflicts.
“We are well and are continuing our work, despite the situation being unclear and not knowing who actually controls the city,” Sr. Elisabeth of the Sisters of Charity of the Immaculate Conception told MISNA from Benghazi.
“The police and army have disappeared, everyone is thinking of their own safety, guarding their homes, businesses and neighborhoods.”
Sr. Elisabeth said she was unsure of how many people have been injured or killed. “But we know there are many,” she said.
She added that the Libyan people are “weary.”
In a brief telephone conversation with CNA on Feb. 24, Bishop Sylvester Magro, Apostolic Vicar of Benghazi, said that the principal concern of the Catholic Church “is to be close to the sick and suffering, so our contribution to the events is invaluable because of our closeness to the people.”
He said that the Catholic population shares the fate of “everybody else,” at this point.
Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli, told Fides on Feb. 23 that the Catholic community in Libya is made up entirely of “foreigners.”
While the Europeans have been mostly evacuated, the Filipinos - who have a particular presence as hospital nurses - have remained, but the African immigrants “are the ones who need the most assistance.”
Bishop Martinelli is “convinced that there are many people who want peace above all.”
Of the Church in Tripoli, he said they have not had any trouble. “We even had some signs of solidarity on the part of the Libyans, in the form of assistance to both the sisters and to Christians, such as the Filipino nurses who are serving at local hospitals.”
He is closely monitoring the situation of religious communities, he said. For those working around the clock to treat victims, they have instructions that they may leave the country for a period of rest if they feel mentally and physically infirm.
Bishop Martinelli also said that one group of religious sisters who work with immigrants in Tripoli may soon be leaving the city anyway because “in this situation it is precarious to work.”
Bishops Martinelli and Magro oversee the two apostolic vicariates that coordinate Church activities from the western capital of Tripoli and the eastern city of Benghazi.
To serve the large and varied immigrant communities, Masses are held at least once a week for at least 10 different groups divided up by nationality or language.
Masses for Koreans, Indians, Eritreans and Filipinos are interspersed among those given in English, Italian, French, Polish and Arabic.
Parish activities are still largely overseen by Franciscan priests. In a number of cities and towns, but in particular in Tripoli and Benghazi, religious communities are also present.
For now, the conflict continues and projections for casualties look grim.
The vice president of the European Parliament, Gianni Pitella, told Vatican Radio that they have received confirmation of around 10,000 dead. He warned that the figure would be increasing by the hour.
He said that “the brutal madness of the regime puts almost any means, even the most atrocious, into play ... to stop the citizens that are in the squares, in the streets and are seeing their dream of freedom being realized.”

A miraculous escape for the little girl the Pope blessed
Saffron Howden. February 18, 2011

Power of prayer ... Peter and Sue Hill with their daughter Claire. Photo: Dallas Kilponen

PETER HILL'S life has been peppered with signs. Years ago, all four tyres blew out one after the other when he suggested to his future wife in the car that God created all things and therefore must be responsible for evil. More recently, Pope Benedict XVI kissed his baby daughter, Claire, at Randwick in Sydney while in the midst of a throng of devotees.
And then, on Tuesday afternoon, he rolled his 22-seater bus on top of her in a queue for petrol on the South Coast.
When he saw the three-year-old lodged under the dual rear wheels of the four-tonne vehicle, Mr Hill was certain that Claire was dead.
But this morning she is likely to be sent home from hospital with little more than grazes and minor bruising.
The tyre marks were yesterday visible on her tiny abdomen, but she astounded her parents and medical specialists by surviving the ordeal without internal injuries, broken bones or lasting physical damage of any kind.
As Claire lay in bed at Sydney Children's Hospital with a Catholic prayer book, red-eyed but smiling and talkative, she said it was her dad and God that saved her.

YOUCAT: Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church Released with Forward by the Pope

Catholic Church is moving ahead be it Iphone apps to assist in preparation for confession or customized version of CCC for youth called YOUCAT to understand the Church and grow in it. People say that CCC and study of Church is tough to understand and so & so forth ....let's see what our dear Pope wants to say about it to all of us....

Dear Friends, Young People!
Today I counsel you to read an extraordinary book.
It is extraordinary because of its content but also because of its format, which I wish to explain to you briefly, so that you will understand its particularity. Youcat drew its origin, so to speak, from another work that came out in the 80s. It was a difficult period for the Church as well as for worldwide society, during which the need was perceived of new guidelines to find a way towards the future. After the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and in the changing cultural environment, many people no longer knew correctly what Christians should actually believe, what the Church taught, if it could, no more and no less, teach, and how all this could be adapted to the new cultural climate.
Is not Christianity, as such, obsolete? Can one still today be reasonably a believer? These are the questions that still today many Christian ask themselves. Pope John Paul II then made an audacious decision: he decided that the bishops worldwide should write a book to answer these questions.
He entrusted to me the task of coordinating and overseeing the work of the bishops so that a book would be born from the contributions of the bishops, a real book and not a simple juxtaposition of a multiplicity of texts. This book was to bear the traditional title of Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), and yet be something altogether stimulating and new; it was to show what the Catholic Church believes today and how one can believe in a reasonable way. I was frightened by this task, and I must confess that I doubted that such a thing could succeed. How could it be that authors who are spread around the whole world could produce a legible book? How could men who live in different continents, and not only from the geographical but also from the intellectual and cultural point of view, produce a text with an internal and comprehensible unity in all the continents?
To this was added the fact that the bishops had to write not simply as individual authors but in representation of their confreres and their local Churches.
I must confess that still today the fact seems a miracle to me that this project in the end succeeded. We met three or four times a year for a week and discussed passionately on the individual portions of the text that had been developed in the meantime.
The first thing to be defined was the structure of the book: it had to be simple, so that the individual groups of authors could receive a clear task and not force their affirmations into a complicated system. It is the very structure of this book, it is taken simply from a centuries-long catechetical experience: what do we believe/ in what way do we celebrate the Christian mysteries / in what way do we have life in Christ / in what way should we pray. I do not wish to explain now how we engaged in the great quantity of questions, until a real book resulted. In a book of this nature there are many debatable points: all that men do is insufficient and can be improved and, this notwithstanding, it is a great book, a sign of unity in diversity. From many voices it was possible to form a choir because they had the common score of the faith, which the Church has transmitted to us from the Apostles through the centuries until today.
Why all this?
Already then, at the time of the drafting of the CCC, we realized not only that the continents and the cultures of their people are different, but that also within the individual societies different "continents" exist: A worker has a different mentality from a peasant's, and a physicist from a philologist's; an entrepreneur from a journalist's, a youth from an elderly person's. For this reason, in language and in thought we had to place ourselves above all these differences and so to speak seek a common area among the different universal mentalities; with this we became ever more aware of how the text required "translations" into the different worlds, to be able to reach the people with their different mentalities and different problems. Since then, in the World Youth Days (Rome, Toronto, Cologne, Sydney) young people from all over the world have met who want to believe, who are searching for God, who love Christ and desire common paths. In this context we asked ourselves if we should not seek to translate the Catechism of the Catholic Church into the language of young people and make its words penetrate their world. Of course also among the young people of today there are many differences; thus, under the tested guidance of the archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schoenborn, a Youcat was formatted for young people. I hope that many young people will let themselves be fascinated by this book.
Some persons tell me that the catechism does not interest today's youth, but I do not believe this affirmation and I am sure I am right. Youth is not as superficial as it is accused of being; young people want to know what life truly consists of. A crime novel is fascinating because it involves us in the fate of other persons, but which could also be our own; this book is fascinating because it speaks to us of our very destiny and that is why it concerns each one of us very closely.
Because of this I invite you: Study the catechism! This is my heartfelt wish.
This supplement to the catechism does not flatter you; it does not offer easy solutions; it calls for a new life on your part; it presents to you the message of the Gospel as the "precious pearl" (Matthew 13:45) for which there is need to give everything, Because of this I ask you: study the catechism with passion and perseverance! Sacrifice your time for it! Study it in the silence of your room, read it together, if you are friends, form groups and study networks, exchange ideas on the Internet. In any case remain in dialogue on your faith!
You must know what you believe; you must know your faith with the same precision with which a specialist in information technology knows the working system of a computer; you must know it as a musician knows his piece; yes, you must be much more profoundly rooted in the faith of the generation of your parents, to be able to resist forcefully and with determination the challenges and temptations of this time. You have need of divine help, if you do not want your faith to dry up as a dewdrop in the sun, if you do not want to succumb to the temptations of consumerism, if you do not want your love to be drowned in pornography, if you do not want to betray the weak and the victims of abuse and violence.
If you dedicate yourselves with passion to the study of the catechism, I would like to give you yet a last counsel: You all know in what way the community of believers has been wounded in recent times by the attacks of evil, by the penetration of sin in the interior, in fact in the heart of the Church. Do not take this as a pretext to flee from God's presence; you yourselves are the Body of Christ, the Church! Carry intact the fire of your love in this Church every time that men have obscured her face. "Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord" (Romans 12:11).
When Israel was in the darkest point of its history, God called to the rescue no great and esteemed persons, but a youth called Jeremiah; Jeremiah felt invested with too great a mission: "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth!" (Jeremiah 1:6). But God did not let himself be misled: "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; for to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you you shall speak" (Jeremiah 1:7).
I bless you and pray every day for all of you.

Benedict PP. XVI

Protest to demand CBI probe in anti-Christian attacks
Published Date: February 17, 2011

Bishops of various denominations will hold a demonstration in Bangalore today, demanding a CBI enquiry into the 2008 anti-Christian attacks in Karnataka.
“The community has rejected the findings of the Justice B.K. Somasekhara Commission that probed attacks on churches in parts of Karnataka in 2008,” said Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore.
He said that the Christian community wants the government to reject the “one-sided, totally unjust and biased report.”
The prelate said that they will submit a memorandum to Governor H R Bhardwaj enlisting their demands after the demonstration.
Meanwhile, Christians from various denominations along with other organizations will take out a silent protest march in Mangalore on Feb. 20 against the report.
The march is mainly organized to “oppose and outrightly reject the report of Justice B.K. Somasekhara Commission,” Father Denis Prabhu, vicar general of Mangalore diocese, told a press conference on Feb. 17.
He said the report has silenced the witnesses and records submitted before the court by more than 1000 Christians and secular petitioners about the anti-Christian attacks.
According to Father Prabhu, Christian from Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Kasargod districts would take part in the protest.
 

Priest electrocuted while trying to save a woman
Published Date: February 18, 2011

A 72-year-old Catholic priest was electrocuted while trying to save a woman in Kerala.
Father Mathew Thondamkuzhy, parish priest of St. George Church Lalam in Palai diocese died on Feb. 17 while trying to save his domestic help, vicar general Father George Choorakkat told ucanews.com.
The 63-year-old woman, Achamma George, came in contact with a high-powered transmission line while working in the church campus.
Father Thondamkuzhy rushed to save the woman hearing her plea for help. “He used a plastic rod to save her, but he was also electrocuted,” Father Choorakkat added.
The Electricity Board officials found the two bodies in the church premises when they went to switch off a transformer for maintenance. “We found the bodies in partially charred state,” said Uthup Varghese, an engineer with the board.
Father Thondamkuzhy had earlier served as an assistant vice postulator for the cause Saint Alphonsa, India’s first woman saint.
 

Bishops protest over report ‘whitewash’
Probe into anti-Christian violence nothing more than politically motivated propaganda, critics say
Philip Mathew, Bangalore - India
February 18, 2011

Catholic and protestant Bishops at a sit-in in Bangalore

Eighteen Catholic and Protestant bishops in the southern Indian state of Karnataka today staged a sit-in to protest about an enquiry commission report on church attacks.
They criticized Justice B. K. Somashekhara Commission for not identifying people who attacked the churches in 2008.
The demonstration was organized in Bangalore, the state capital, by the Karnataka United Christian Forum for Human Rights and the Karnataka Region Catholic Bishops’ Council.
The commission had presented its final report on January 28, after nearly three years of investigation, to the state government led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, India people’s party).
The report is not judicial findings but politically motivated statements, alleged Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore, who heads the Catholic Church in the state.
The report is “completely one-sided, biased, propagandist and even communal,” he said, adding that it has been “totally unfair to all Christians.”
“The Christians who were the target of attacks and the victims of the organized mayhem and vandalism have been converted into the perpetrators, while the real attackers and all forces and elements that had directly or indirectly supported have been given a clean chit,” Archbishop Morass bemoaned.
The commission investigated 57 cases of church attacks in 2008, soon after the BJP government came to power in the state.
The bishops have demanded that the government should hand over the cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the top probe agency in the country.
They also demanded withdrawal of over 150 cases lodged against Christians who were hurt and disturbed by the church attacks.
Meanwhile, the Global Council of Indian Christians organized a similar protest in another part of the city which some 3,000 Christians of all denominations attended.
 

Number of priests growing worldwide, Vatican reports
By Alan Holdren

Vatican City, Feb 11, 2011 / 05:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- There are more than 5,000 more Catholic priests globally in 2009 than there were in 1999, according to official Church statistics.
The Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper anticipated the news from the soon-to-be released 2009 almanac prepared by the Vatican’s Central Office of Church Statistics.
The statistics reveal that there were 410,593 priests in the world in 2009 compared to 405,009 in 1999. The number of diocesan priests among these increased by over 10,000 while the number of those belonging to religious orders fell by nearly 5,000.
In North America, as well as Europe and Oceania, the numbers decreased for both diocesan and religious priests. Africa and Asia, however, brought up the overall figures with a more than 30 percent increase on both continents.
Europe still has nearly half of the world’s priests, but the “old continent” is gradually losing weight on the world stage.
More seminarians are studying for the priesthood from Africa and Asia and fewer from Europe. But, there is also the issue of the number of deaths of priests in the different areas.
In Europe, the average age of priests is higher than in Africa and Asia. The number of European priests is falling as new ordinations do not surpass the numbers of those who die. But in Asia and Africa the number of deaths was only one-third of the total new ordinations. North and South America’s numbers combined show a positive trend over the decade since 1999, according to L’Osservatore Romano. In Oceania, the death-to-ordination ratio was equal.
The Vatican’s publishing house prints the volume of Church statistics annually. It includes names and biographies of major Catholic figures and offers a variety statistics on all those who work in apostolates and evangelization efforts the world over.
It also offer shorter term statistics. They report, for example, that between 2008 and 2009 the number of priests in the world increased by 809. According the Vatican newspaper, this is the highest jump since 1999 and a reason “to look to the future with renewed hope.”

Muslims rally against Christian attacks
Mangalore protesters say report into Karnataka violence unjust
Francis Rodrigues, Mangalore
February 14, 2011

Muslims organized a rally in Mangalore to protest increasing attacks on Christians
Muslims in Karnataka, southern India have staged a rally in Mangalore to protest against attacks on Christians by Hindu radical groups.
“Christians educate children and provide medical care for elders,” said Ali Hassan, convener of the Muslim Central Committee of Mangalore that organized the protest on Feb. 11.
“But they are rewarded with continuous attacks on their churches by Hindu extremists. This can never be Hinduism or patriotism,” Hassan asserted.
The Muslim leader said they organized the rally to protest a government commission repo that exonerated Hindu extremists from attacks on churches in the state in 2008.
The commission headed by B. K. Somashekhara, a retired judge, submitted its report on January. 28.
Mohammad Kunni, a Muslim youth leader, lamented attempts by Hindu extremists to brand Muslims as terrorists and Christians as conversion agents.
He noted that Christians, Hindus and Muslims live together in Indian villages sharing joys and sorrows and transcending social and religious barriers.
K. L. Ashok, a Hindu and secretary of the forum for communal harmony, told the protesters to reject the commission’s report as it has not done justice to Christians even after a two-year investigation.
Philomena Peres, a Catholic and former state Women’s Commission president, said the government “wasted” 190 million rupees (US$4.2 million) in producing a “biased and unjust report” on anti-Christian violence.
Some 2,000 people joined the rally which started at a local mosque an ended at the district commissioner’s office.
The Muslim leaders later presented a letter to the commissioner demanding a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the church attacks.
They also demanded the release of Muslim youths arrested for alleged terrorist attacks in various parts of India.

Byzantine church mosaic discovered near Jerusalem
Israeli archeologists suggest site is also burial place of Prophet Zecharia
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 February 2011 19.11 GMT

Matti Friedman
Associated Press. Friday, February 04, 2011
Detail of the newly uncovered Byzantine mosaics outside Jerusalem. Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images

HIRBET MADRAS, Israel: Archaeologists presented a newly uncovered 1,500-year-old church in the Judean hills Wednesday, including an unusually well-preserved mosaic floor with images of lions, foxes and peacocks.
The Byzantine church located southwest of Jerusalem, excavated over the last two months, will be visible only for another week before archaeologists cover it again with soil for its own protection.
The small basilica with an exquisitely decorated floor was active between the fifth and seventh centuries, said the dig’s leader, Amir Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority. He said the floor was “one of the most beautiful mosaics to be uncovered in Israel in recent years.”
“It is unique in its craftsmanship and level of preservation,” he said.
Archaeologists began digging at the site, known as Hirbet Madras, in December. The Antiquities Authority discovered several months earlier that antiquities thieves had begun plundering the ruins.
Though an initial survey suggested the building was a synagogue, the excavation revealed stones carved with crosses, identifying it as a church. The building had been built atop another structure around 500 years older, dating to Roman times, when scholars believe the settlement was inhabited by Jews.
Hewn into the rock underneath that structure is a network of tunnels that archaeologists believe were used by Jewish rebels fighting Roman armies in the second century.
Stone steps lead down from the floor of church to a small burial cave, which scholars suggest might have been venerated as the burial place of the Old Testament prophet Zecharia, known from the eponymous book in the Bible, written around 520 B.C.
The claim, which various experts have based on Christian sources and an ancient diagram known as the Madaba Map, has not been proved and is still being studied, Israeli authorities said.
Ganor said the church would remain covered until funding was obtained to open it as a tourist site.
Israel boasts an exceptionally high concentration of archaeological sites, including Crusader, Islamic, Byzantine, Roman, ancient Jewish and prehistoric ruins. – With Reuters

Matti Friedman
Associated Press. Friday, February 04, 2011

Israel — Israeli archaeologists unveiled on Wednesday the remnants of a newly discovered Byzantine-era church they suspect is concealing the tomb of the biblical prophet Zechariah.
The church, with intricate and well-preserved mosaic floors, was discovered on the slopes of the Judaean hills at Horbat Midras, the site of a Jewish community in Roman times, southwest of Jerusalem.
Underneath is a second layer of mosaics dating from the Roman period, with a cave complex still further below which archaeologists think could be Zechariah's tomb.
"Researchers believe that in light of an analysis of the Christian sources ... the church at Horbet Madras is a memorial church designed to mark the tomb of the prophet Zechariah," the Israel Antiquities Authority said.
A statement noted, however, that more work is needed to confirm the hypothesis.
A Jewish prophet of the late sixth century before Christ, Zechariah is associated with the book of the Old Testament that refers to four horsemen and other visions prefiguring the coming of God in judgement.
The church at Horbat Midras was discovered after a gang of tomb raiders was found to be in possession of the church lintel -- part of the door structure -- which they said came from an underground location.
"Following the discovery, an excavation was carried out with the aim of revealing the secrets of the monumental building which the lintel belonged to," added the statement
"There is no doubt the discovery is extraordinary and of great importance in terms of research, religion and tourism," it said.
 
 

USA - Vandals deface church statues

By Doug Page | Monday, February 7, 2011, 04:15 PM
Dayton, OH

Police are still looking for the those responsible for defacing the limestone statues of saints at Immaculate Conception Church.
Police were called to the church Jan. 31 and found someone had spray-painted eight of the statues. In each case, the saints’ faces were spray-painted red. In the courtyard where the statues stand, a brick wall had “666” painted in black. The other side of the wall had a red pentagram.
The doors on two nearby garages owned by the church were defaced in a similar manner. One had “fallen angels” with “666” under it in black. The other had red pentagrams surrounded by “666.”

The statues are all over 50 years old and porous to the point that the spray painted had seeped into the stone, according to the police report.
 
 

Central Java: Thousands of Muslims attack three churches, an orphanage and a Christian centre

02/08/2011 10:03
INDONESIA
by Mathias Hariyadi
Parish priest of Catholic Church badly beaten. A police vehicle torched and the court Temanggung destroyed. The wrath of the crowd unleashed over a blasphemy sentence deemed to lenient (5 years in prison instead of death penalty).
Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Thousands of angry Muslims attacked three churches, a Christian orphanage and a health centre that is also a Christian. The violence took place this morning at 10 am (local time) and only ended with the intervention of police in riot gear and police vans. One of the vans was set on fire by the crowd.
he revolt took place in Temanggung regency (Central Java), and started right in front of the town hall: first the crowd attacked the court where a trial against Richmond Bawengan Antonius, a Christian born in Manado (North Sulawesi) , accused of proselytizing and blasphemy was being held.
Bawengan was arrested in October 2010 because during a visit to Temanggung he had distributed printed missionary material, which, among other things, poked fun at some Islamic symbols. The profanity has cost him five years in prison, but the crowd were demanding the death sentence. The violence was sparked by their dissatisfaction with the verdict.
Instead of leaving the court, the crowd started pushing, shouting provocative slogans and then destroyed the building. Hundreds of police rushed in to intervene but failed to appease the thousands of Muslims who began to march en masse to "target Christians" on the main street of the city.
The Catholic Church of St Peter and Paul on Sudirman Boulevard was the first to be attacked, according to AsiaNews sources, the parish priest, Fr Saldhana, a missionary of the Holy Family, was violently beaten as he tried to protect the tabernacle and the Eucharist against the mob.
The crowd then attacked a Pentecostal church. According to the pastor Darmanto - another Christian leader of Temanggung - the main goal was the Pentecostal church, which was then burned. The mob, however, still not appeased went on to destroy in a Catholic orphanage and a health centre of the Sisters of Providence.
Another Protestant church in Shekinah was burnt down.
 

"Democratic" Egypt Sends Apostates to Their Death

The Egyptians in revolt are asking for more freedom, but they also want the death penalty for those who convert from Islam to another religion. A major survey on the most populous Muslim country of northern Africa and the Middle East
by Sandro Magister

ROME, February 3, 2011 – Much of the Egyptian population that in recent days has rebelled against the thirty-year regime of Hosni Mubarak says that it prefers democracy to any other form of government.
At the same time, however, and in an overwhelming majority, they want those who commit adultery to be stoned, thieves to have their hands cut off, and those who abandon the Muslim religion to be put to death.
This is the result of a survey conducted in Egypt and in six other majority Muslim countries by the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, the world leader for research in this field:

The other six countries surveyed are Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Nigeria.
The case of Egypt is getting special attention these days. But comparisons with the other countries are also of great interest.
For example, democracy is held to be the best form of government by 59 percent of Egyptians, while in Turkey and Lebanon it gets even more support, 76 and 81 percent respectively.
In Egypt, however, 22 percent of the population maintains that in some circumstances a nondemocratic government is preferable.
On the relationship between politics and religion, almost half of Egyptians think that Islam already has a strong influence on politics. And among those who think this way, 95 percent believe it is a good thing.
In general, 85 out of 100 Egyptians believe that Islam has a positive influence on politics, against only 2 percent who see it as a negative. But in Lebanon and Turkey, the unfavorable views exceed 30 percent.
In a runoff between modernizers and fundamentalists, 59 percent of Egyptians say that they side with the fundamentalists, against 27 percent who root for the former. In Lebanon and Turkey, the sides are flipped: 84 and 74 percent respectively are with the modernizers, while 15 and 11 percent align themselves with the fundamentalists.
More than half of the Egyptians, 54 percent to be exact, among both men and women, are in favor of the separation of the sexes in the workplace. While in Lebanon and Turkey, those against it are between 80 and 90 percent.
When asked to give their views on Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda, in Egypt 49 percent say they are in favor of Hamas, 30 percent of Hezbollah, and 20 percent of al-Qaeda.
These views are partly influenced by whether one is Sunni or Shiite. The Egyptians are Sunni, as is Hamas, while Hezbollah is Shiite.
In any case, support for Hezbollah in Egypt has been falling for several years. It stood at 56 percent in 2007, 54 percent in 2008, 43 percent in 2009, and 30 percent in 2010.
And although it is in the minority, support for suicide terrorists is growing. In Egypt, 20 percent justify this, while in 2009 15 percent did.
Returning to the death penalty for those who abandon Islam, called for by 84 percent of Egyptians, it must be pointed out that those who want it are men and women, old and young, educated and uneducated, without distinction.
In Jordan, the level of support for sentencing apostates to death rises all the way to 86 percent. It is only in Lebanon and Turkey that support is low, at 6 and 5 percent respectively.
_____________
The complete text, released on December 2, 2010, of the survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life:
According to another, more recent survey by the Pew Forum on the growing number of Muslims in the world, Egypt, which had 53 million inhabitants in 1990 and has 80 million today, could exceed 105 million by 2030, remaining the most populous Muslim country of northern Africa and the Middle East
 

Egypt Unrest Brings Christians Hope, Fear
Posted by George Baghdadi

Egyptian Coptic Orthodox members perform prayers at the Coptic Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt, , Jan. 7, 2010.
(Credit: AP )
The images of violent protests across Egypt are undoubtedly worrying to all, but concerns over the chaos are felt more acutely by Egypt's minority Orthodox Christians, who have complained for years that the current government does too little to protect them.

The New Year began in Egypt with an explosion of long-simmering sectarian tensions. Thirty minutes after midnight on Jan. 1, during a New Year's Eve mass, a bomb exploded in front of Saints Church in the northern port city of Alexandria, killing 21 worshipers and injuring about 100 others in the deadliest attack on Coptic Christians in more than a decade.
A few days later, a 71-year-old Christian was killed and five others wounded in a shooting aboard a train, prompting three days of riots by the disaffected minority which makes up 10 percent of Egypt's population of 80 million.
Now, as mass protests against President Hosni Mubarak's 30 years of harsh rule appear to be gaining steam, Egypt's Coptics have every reason to fear the possible outcome of a change at the top.
The Christian population is often made the scapegoat for Egypt's ills. When swine flu hit the nation, one Coptic Egyptian told CBS News sarcastically that they blamed Copts.
The continuing protests and violence have aroused fears among most Christians that if the president steps down, a far more radical authority -- possibly far less amicable to the Coptic population -- may take over.
Coptic Pope Shenouda III appeared on Egyptian state television on Sunday and in unusually blunt terms urged all Egyptians to, "safeguard the security and stability of the country."
Live Blog: Egypt in Crisis, Day 7
Many suspect the continuing unrest could go further to boost the aims of the Muslim Brotherhood -- the largest and best organized opposition group in Egypt, and one which seeks to turn the country into a non-secular, Islamic state -- than to help the majority of Egyptian citizens who are tired of their government.
Most analysts say that if free and fair elections were to be held, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood would win, easily.
Officially illegal but largely tolerated by the Mubarak government, the Brotherhood boasts thousands of grassroots members. It won one-fifth of the seats in parliamentary elections in 2005 - half of those it contested -- with its members running as independents.
"The Islamists have not shown their real face yet. They are still playing a low profile. They want the liberals to damage the regime, and then they will come to light for real business," one analyst told CBS News on condition of anonymity.
There are some Christians, however, who are less concerned, essentially telling CBS the Mubarak government was doing them no favors and things could improve.
Omar Al-Sharif, Egypt's most famous actor, who starred in Hollywood films, was clear.
"I give my full backing to the people. The President has to resign. He has been a president for 30 years. This is enough," says the actor, now 78.
Some insist that the crowds in the streets represent a cross-section of Egyptian society: men and women, rich and poor, young and old, Christian and Muslim -- and there is some truth to that assessment.
"Christian or Muslim, it's not important, similar poverty similar concerns! Hosni Mubarak, the plane is waiting. Saudi Arabia is not far," sang people in Shubra, a working-class district in the center of Cairo known as a stronghold of the Coptic community. They singers were marching to Tahrir Square, to join thousands of others calling for Mubarak's ouster.
 

Pakistan: Islamic militants beat Pope’s effigy

The radical Islamic groups of the Tehrik Tahaffuz Namoos-i-Risalat network (TTNR -Alliance to defend the honor of the Prophet) burned effigies of Pope Benedict XVI and the Federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, as well as the Christian symbol of the Cross. Bhatti is a Christian and has openly demanded an end to Islamic blasphemy laws and condemned the persecution of minorities such as Christians, Hindus, and Muslim dissidents.
According to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance  (APMA), a human rights advocacy organization, this happened on January 30 during the protest in Lahore by more than 40,000 Islamic militants. The Islamists condemned any amendment to the blasphemy law, and fiercely opposed the liberation of Asia Bibi - a Christian woman sentenced to death on charges of blasphemy. The protesters also condemned the Pope and the United States.
Archbishop Lawrence Saldhana of Lahore and President of the conference of Catholic bishops of Pakistan, commented "The Islamic radicals have attacked the Pope, accusing him of interfering in the life of the Country. They burned his effigy and the Cross. For that we are very sorry. As faithful Christians this wounds us. We dissociate ourselves from every act of violence and we demand respect for all sacred symbols, whatever their religion."
Local sources note that the same Islamic radicals who defend the name and the honor of the Mohammed  against every person or act considered "blasphemous" did not hesitate to insult and give offence to the symbols of the Christian religion, such as the cross of Jesus Christ and the Pope.
Further, the demonstration in Lahore confirmed the hatred towards the Minister for Minorities, Catholic, Shahbaz Bhatti. According to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, this is the latest open threat against Minister Bhatti, whose life is in serious danger, and who has been left completely on his own at the political level. Bhatti has remained unmoved but has called for prayers to stem the violent threats against his life. APMA stressed that security measures put in place to defend him are completely inadequate. The advocacy group also stressed the urgency with which protection should be afforded to the government official.
Archbishop Saldanha was quoted as saying, "Minister Bhatti is experiencing a very difficult time, targeted by extremists. On behalf of all Christians in Pakistan, we wish to express to the Minister our complete solidarity and gratitude for his social and political commitment to defending religious minorities." The Archbishop, recalling the Day of Prayer and fasting for peace, observed by Christians on January 30 said "The prayer, fasting, sharing and words of peace we exchanged on Sunday give us hope and strength, even if we are a small community which experiences suffering and difficulties."
Source: FIDES
 

A Glimmer of Light in an Egypt in Revolt

It is an appeal issued by 23 Muslim figures, for an Islam that is more authentic and respectful of the rights of all. On the path of the illuminist revolution proposed by Benedict XVI. The analysis of the Egyptian Jesuit Samir

by Sandro Magister

ROME, January 31, 2011 – Mubarak's Egypt was a mainstay of Western politics in the Middle East. It was also a mainstay for the dialogue between the Church of Rome and Shiite Islam, with its epicenter the mosque and university of al-Azhar. Egypt was considered a bulwark against radical Islam and protection for local Christians, although at the price of their oppressive subjection, under a regime of perpetual "dhimmitude."
Today, all this risks being overturned by an upheaval whose beneficiaries will inevitably be the Muslim Brotherhood and the radical Islamic currents. The New Year's Eve massacre at the Coptic church in Alexandria is the tragic corollary of a "fitna," of a fracture inside the Muslim world in Egypt and in other countries, against regimes and leaders held to be apostates, against a Christian presence held to be polluting, to be swept away.

Even the accusations of "interference" unexpectedly hurled against Benedict XVI at the beginning of this year by the grand imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayyeb, and his subsequent abandonment of dialogue with the Church of Rome are part of this fracture, which has exploded in the revolts of recent days. The imam of al-Azhar is tied with a double thread to Mubarak's illiberal regime, with which he shares the same description of "moderate" against the background of international equilibrium. To keep the brakes on mass Muslim revolts, both of the Egyptian authorities – political and religious – have always repressed on the one hand the freedom of the Coptic Christians, and on the other, the range of activity of the radical Islamic currents.

Most recently, the increased fear of a collapse of the regime has induced both Mubarak and al-Azhar to crack down even harder. In fact, even before the massacre in Alexandria, Imam al-Tayyeb – who is also one of the signers of the famous "letter of the 138 Muslim scholars" to the pope – had opened the hostilities against the Church of Rome. He had demanded and obtained the retraction of one of the Vatican's key delegates – Fr. Khaled Akasheh, Jordanian, an expert on Islam and member of the pontifical council for interreligious dialogue – from talks previously scheduled in Cairo but now definitively canceled.

Until recently, moreover, both Mubarak and al-Azhar had also systematically reduced to silence all of the pro-reform voices in the Muslim camp that have distanced themselves from the traditionalist currents. The list of "heretics" who have been killed, wounded, put on trial, imprisoned, silenced, exiled, is startling. It includes a Nobel laureate in literature, the great Naguib Mahfuz.
It is no surprise, therefore, that in these days of general revolt, some of these reformist voices have come out into the open.
Among the other collective actors present in Egypt, the Copts have held back from taking to the streets (a protest march broke out among them only after the massacre in Alexandria). They are afraid that the collapse of the Mubarak regime would make their lives even more difficult than they already are.
The Muslim Brotherhood has also stayed on the sidelines, but for different reasons. They are calculating that either way, the collapse of the regime would be to their advantage.
For the reformist Muslims, however, an opening has been made. And they have made their voices heard.
*
On January 24, on the website of the Egyptian magazine "Yawm al-Sâbi" (The Seventh Day), a text appeared entitled "Document for the renewal of religious discourse." By that night, the text had already been posted on more than 12,000 other Arab websites.
Its importance was pointed out beyond the Arab world by a Jesuit and Islamologist, Samir Khalil Samir, Egyptian by birth, greatly respected by Benedict XVI. He has translated and commented on the essential parts of the document in two articles published by the online agency "Asia News" of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions.
The original text of the document, in Arabic, is on this web page of "Yawm al-Sâbi":

> "Document for the renewal of religious discourse"

It is explained there that the document was written following the guidelines of 23 Egyptian Muslim thinkers, indicated name by name.
For Fr. Samir, they are all renowned scholars and believers. They include Nasr Farid Wasel, former grand mufti of Egypt; Gamal al-Banna, brother of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood; the imam Safwat Hegazi; professors Malakah Zirâr and Âminah Noseir; the famous Islamist writer Fahmi Huweidi; the preachers of Islamic missions Khalid al-Gindi, Muhammad Hedâyah, and Mustafa Husni. Three of these are shown at the top of the document, in the photo reproduced on this page.
The document is in 22 bullet points delineating a plan of reform for Islam: from a superficial and external practice of it to a more authentic and essential one.

Here it is, on the basis of a translation from Arabic made "on the fly" by Fr. Samir:
*
DOCUMENT FOR THE RENEWAL OF RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE

Cairo, January 24, 2011
1. Reexamine the collections of the Hadith [the sayings traditionally attributed to Muhammad] and the commentaries of the Qur'an, to purify them.
2. Subject to analysis the political-religious vocabulary of Islam, for example the gizah [the special tax required from the dhimmi, the non-Muslim minorities subjected to limitations].
3. Find a new practice of the concept of interaction between the sexes.
4. Clarify the Islamic view on women and find convenient forms for marriage rights.
5. Islam is a religion of creativity.
6. Explain the Islamic concept of jihâd [inner and outer holy war], and specify norms and obligations that regulate it.
7. Stop the invasion of external religiosity and the extraneous practices that come to us from nearby countries.
8. Separate religion from the state.
9. Purify the heritage of the first centuries of Islam (Salafism), eliminating the myths and aggressions against religion.
10. Give adequate preparation to the missionary preachers, and in this field, open the doors to those who have not studied at the university of Al Azhar, according to very clear criteria.
11. Formulate the virtues common to the three revealed religions.
12. Give guidelines on Western customs, and eliminate incorrect behaviors.
13. Clarify the relationship that must exist among members of the different religions through schools, mosques, and churches.
14. Modify the presentation of the biography of the Prophet in a way adapted for the West.
15. Not keep people away from economic systems with the interdiction of dealing with banks.
16. Recognize the right of women to become president of the republic.
17. Combat sectarian claims, [emphasizing] that the flag of Islam [must be] one.
18. Invite the people to go to God through gratitude and wisdom, and not with threats.
19. Make the teaching of al-Azhar evolve.
20. Recognize the right of Christians to occupy important positions [including] the presidency of the republic.
21. Separate religious discourse from power, and reestablish its connection with the needs of society.
22. Improve the connection between the da'wah [the call to conversion to Islam] and modern technology, the satellite channels and the market for Islamic recordings.
*
These 22 points are followed by an equal number of paragraphs of commentary. Which, in Fr. Samir's judgment, give a glimpse of a real and proper revolution with respect to the traditionalist and puritanical ways of living Islam recently introduced into Egypt, above all by Saudi Arabia.
In his analysis for "Asia News," Fr. Samir sees importance in point 8, with the proposal to separate religion from politics. In the attached commentary – he points out – the word "almaniyyah," secularism, appears. A word that in Arab countries is usually understood as atheism, and therefore automatically condemned. So much so that at the synod on the Middle East held in Rome last October, the bishops avoided using it.
Here, however, the authors of the document write that secularism must not be considered an enemy of religion, but rather as a safeguard against the political or commercial use of religion. "In this context," they write, "secularism is in harmony with Islam, and therefore is juridically acceptable." But not if it is turned into a control of Islamic activities on the part of the state.

Fr. Samir comments:
"This point, although it is greatly debated, demonstrates the fact that in Egypt the concept of civil society is emerging, not immediately in agreement with the Islamic community."
Also noteworthy is point 6 on the holy war. The authors of the document admit it only if it is defensive, and only in Muslim territory. Never with the killing of unarmed persons, women, the elderly, children, priests, monks. Never with attacks on places of prayer. They emphasize that this has been the teaching of Islam for 1400 years, and that those who violate it seriously betray it.
*
The signal given by this document is a small one. But it must not be overlooked. When these issues were discussed previously- as has been done a number of times – in talks between representatives of the Catholic Church and of Islam, they were never picked up and spread in Muslim public opinion.
The "letter of the 138" itself is still unknown to most of the Muslims in the world.
This document from Cairo, on the other hand, was born in the Muslim camp and has immediately spread to a wider circuit of opinion. It is getting a lot of comments on the various websites, most of them in disagreement and hostile, but still proof of interest in discussing the issue.
If one looks at what Benedict XVI has said – in the same year as the lecture in Regensburg and the voyage to Turkey – about the future of Islam, this document from Cairo marks a small step in the very direction hoped for by the pope.

Benedict XVI said to the Roman curia on December 22, 2006:
"The Muslim world today finds itself facing an extremely urgent task that is very similar to the one that was imposed upon Christians beginning in the age of the Enlightenment, and that Vatican Council II, through long and painstaking effort, resolved concretely for the Catholic Church. [...]
On the one hand, we must oppose a dictatorship of positivist reasoning that excludes God from the life of the community and from the public order, thus depriving man of his specific criteria of judgment.
On the other hand, it is necessary to welcome the real achievements of Enlightenment thinking – human rights, and especially the freedom of faith and its exercise, recognizing these as elements that are also essential for the authenticity of religion. Just as in the Christian community there has been lengthy inquiry into the right attitude of faith toward these convictions – an inquiry that certainly will never be concluded definitively – so also the Islamic world, with its own tradition, stands before the great task of finding the appropriate solutions in this regard."
 

Some Christians in Pakistan convert fear into safety
Published On Thu Jan 20 2011 - The Star

Azra Mustafa, a 45-year-old housekeeper in Lahore, Pakistan, recently converted to Islam from Christianity, partly out of fear for her family's safety. She and her children, above, receive lessons at home on Arabic and the Qur’an from a teacher.

Irfan Chaudhary/For the Toronto Star

By Rick Westhead South Asia Bureau
LAHORE, PAKISTAN—Dog-eared and tattered, the blue book is an inch thick and sits on a dented metal table in the corner office of Jamia Naeemia, an Islamic school tucked in a scattering of cement-walled homes and roadside shops.
Many believe the book offers the promise of safety and perhaps even a better chance at prosperity.
The book is a registry used to document religious converts to Islam and officials at Jamia Naeemia say business is brisk nowadays.
At least 20 to 25 former Christians adopt Islam each week by pledging an oath and signing a green and white document in which they accept Islam as “the most beautiful religion” and promise to “remain in the religion of Islam for the rest of my life, acknowledging that blessings are only from God.”
Human rights advocates say it’s no surprise some of Pakistan’s 3 million Christians are adopting Islam. These are vexing and dangerous days for the country’s religious minorities.
Last autumn, politician Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s most prosperous province, began to campaign on behalf of a Christian woman named Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. On Jan. 4, with debate over the future of Pakistan’s blasphemy law at a fever pitch, Taseer was gunned down by one of his personal security guards.
Public reaction to Taseer’s assassination was stunning.

Pakistan’s lawyers, praised just three years ago for saving this country’s independent judiciary, showered Taseer’s assassin with rose petals on his way into court. A rally to celebrate his death attracted 40,000 in Karachi and thousands more posted tributes to the killer on their Facebook accounts.
“To be honest, I felt good when I heard he was dead; we got rid of him,” said Raghib Naeemia, an iman at Jamia Naeemia. “It’s very clear in the Holy Qur’an that if you say something nasty and harsh about the Holy Prophet, then you become a maloun (cursed) person. And we are supposed to round up those people and kill them very harshly.”
While Taseer was among several high-profile politicians who have argued the blasphemy law should be amended, human rights workers say the real issue is how often the law is misused.
An allegation of blasphemy shouted in the streets can, in an instant, whip a crowd into a frenzy and lead to assaults and dubious arrests.
In one recent example, a Shiite Muslim doctor last month was confronted in his Hyderabad office by a pharmaceutical salesman. After telling the supplier he wasn’t interested in buying anything, the salesman persisted, according to local news reports. The doctor tossed the salesman’s business card in a trash bin.
But because the salesman’s name was Muhammad — the same as the Muslim prophet — he complained to religious leaders that tossing his card the garbage was blasphemy.
The doctor was dragged out of his office and beaten by a mob. Then he was arrested by police and charged with blasphemy.
“No one feels safe right now,” said Nadeem Anthony, a Christian and a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. “People are scared.
If you want something from your neighbour or you are angry at him, you say blasphemy and that’s it.”
In the most famous case, the one that has transfixed the nation and led to Taseer’s killing, centres on Bibi, a resident of the Punjabi village of Ittanwali, west of Lahore.
While working in the fields last June, she was sent to fetch water. When some of the other woman refused to drink it because it had been carried by a Christian, a spat ensued about the merits of both religions. The other women later went to a cleric and complained that Bibi has blasphemed the name of the Prophet Muhammad.
A complaint was filed and Bibi was charged, convicted, and given a death sentence.

The spirit of McCarthyism hangs in the air like the clouds of dust that swirl though this historic city’s poor neighbourhoods.
In Lahore last week, a Christian woman got into a heated argument with her sister-in-law, a Muslim. The Muslim woman went outside their home and cried out that her relative had blasphemed against Islam. A group of protesters stormed into the home and beat the woman. One of the ringleaders later bragged that his own wife had hit the woman the hardest.
“Her hand is so swollen that she hasn’t been able to make rotis,” he told the Express Tribune newspaper.
The Christian woman and her husband are now in hiding, the paper reported.
One of the results of this wave of anti-Christian activity unfolded on a sunny afternoon this week. Azra Mustafa, a 45-year-old housemaid, shuffled into the Jamia Naeemia and asked to speak to an imam. A recent convert to Islam, the housemaid and mother of six needed to get the proper documents to prove to her neighbours that she was no longer a Christian.
“It feels great,” she said. “I moved to a Muslim neighbourhood and now I feel like we are one family.”
Each day, Mustafa, whose husband remains Christian and now lives separately from his wife and children, wakes up to attend 5 a.m. prayers before she leaves for work four hours later. By the time she returns home at 7 p.m. from a job that pays her 2,500 rupees ($28) a month, darkness has fallen over her one-room home. After dinner, a teacher comes to her home to give Mustafa and her children 90-minute lessons on Arabic and the Qur’an.

Asked if she felt safer in the wake of her conversion, Mustafa replied, “of course.”
Mustafa sat patiently as the seminary’s staff and students hustled about, preparing to attend a rally scheduled for later that afternoon — a protest that featured at least 3,000 people who at one point chanted “death to Christians and the friends of Christians” as they marched through the heart of Lahore.
As Mustafa gathered her papers together and prepared to leave, Parvaiz Masih, a 23-year-old auto rickshaw diver, walked into the office. He hoped to convert that afternoon, and had already told friends he would now be known as Muhammad Parvaiz.
“I’ve been thinking about it for two or three years,” he said, wrapped in a heavy blue shawl. “About four days ago, I decided to do it.”
A group of a dozen young men studied Parvaiz and a visitor asked if Taseer’s murder and other publicized clashes involving Christians had played a role in his decision. Parvaiz shrugged meekly and wouldn’t answer.
It wasn’t long before another Christian, 26-year-old Naseer, entered Jamia Naeemia. With a crowd of men looking on, she, too, was hesitant to elaborate on why she wanted to follow Islam, but nodded when she was asked whether she believed she would be safer as a Muslim.

Adjusting a pin on the saffron-coloured dupatta that covered her face, Naseer said she had slipped away from her parents’ home earlier in the day to make her way to the seminary. When another visitor asked again whether her personal safety played a role in her decision, Nasreen flashed a look of anger and snapped, “there’s no question.”
It was clear why Naseer and others were hesitant to speak more freely about their concerns over safety. An iman for the madrassa said he would not proceed if someone gave safety as a reason for their conversion.
Peter Jacob, executive director of an advocacy organization funded by the Catholic Church, said an average of 400 Christians annually converted to Islam between 2005 and 2010. In 2011, he expects that number to swell. “It’s going to be very different in these hostile conditions,” Jacob said. “People have no faith in the police or justice system and the kind of fear that exists now was never there before.”
It isn’t only Christians in Pakistan who are feeling uncertain nowadays.
The blasphemy law is playing a role even in battles between Muslims, who make up about 97 per cent of Pakistan’s 180 million people.
Zafar Hilali, a former Pakistani ambassador and foreign secretary, insists the venom over blasphemy has more to do with Pakistan’s class divide than religion.
“The poor are becoming increasingly desperate and don’t know what to do; some religious leaders that are using that,” Hilali said, adding that the instability adds to their influence and political sway.
 

More Anglican priests to join Catholic Church
Three former Anglican bishops were ordained as Catholic priests on 15 January

BBC - 23 January 2011
Three former Anglican bishops were ordained as Catholic priests on 15 January

Seven Anglican priests and 300 members of six congregations are to join a new section of the Catholic Church, the Catholic Diocese of Brentwood says.
The move involves three parishes in Essex, and three in east London.
It is the largest known influx to date into the Ordinariate, which Pope Benedict established for Church of England members unhappy over issues such as the ordination of women.
Three former Anglican bishops have been appointed to lead the Ordinariate.
Ordinariates allow Anglicans opposed to developments including women bishops, gay clergy and same-sex blessings to convert to Rome while maintaining some of their traditions.

The Bishop of Brentwood, the Right Reverend Thomas McMahon, told BBC Essex the Anglicans were unhappy about the church's general move away from the traditions it once shared with Catholics, but described the decision as "a very big move".
"They relinquish their present post, a very big thing, leaving some of their people which brings heartache, into a fairly unknown future, as this ordinariate has only just been brought up.
"It calls for huge faith and huge trust because the future isn't that certain," he said.
Three vicars in Chelmsford, Hockley and Benfleet are among those men being trained to become Catholic deacons. A seventh retired Anglican vicar is also converting.

The Vatican will allow them to maintain a distinct religious identity and spiritual heritage within the Ordinariate.
The Anglican Bishop of Chelmsford, the Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell, said he was disappointed that 300 members in Essex were converting to Catholicism.
"Although I'm sorry these people are going, I do respect their decision," he told BBC Essex.
"But it is a small group of people. The Church of England remains the church for everyone."
According to a timetable set by the Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales, former Anglican clergy and groups of worshippers wishing to enter the Ordinariate will be enrolled as candidates at the beginning of Lent in early March.
They will subsequently be received into the Roman Catholic Church and confirmed. This is likely to take place during Holy Week (17-23 April).

Where the new congregations will worship has yet to be decided.
"It will be on a case-by-case basis," said Father Keith Newton, the former Anglican bishop who now heads the Ordinariate.
"I hope in some cases the Church of England will be generous and there will be some sharing of Anglican premises. But I think normally our groups will be worshipping in Catholic churches," he added.
However, that does not mean that worshippers of the Ordinariate will be "mingled in" with Catholic congregations.

Funded by donations
"They will have a special service in their own right," said Bishop McMahon.
The Ordinariate will be funded initially by donations but its priests will not receive a salary, as they did in the Anglican church.
"We are hoping they will find some part-time work as chaplains in schools and hospitals," said Bishop McMahon. "We have already had some offers from charities."
Former Anglican bishops Andrew Burnham, Keith Newton and John Broadhurst were ordained into the group at Westminster Cathedral on 15 January.
At the time Father Newton estimated that about 50 Anglican clergy might join the Roman Catholic church - along with some members of their congregations.
 

In Baghdad, an Encore of "Murder in the Cathedral"
The truth about the massacre in the Syriac Catholic church. Elimination of Christians as the prime objective of Islamist ideology. The pope meets with the survivors. And issues an appeal to the world

by Sandro Magister

ROME, December 7, 2010 – In the photo above, Benedict XVI is greeting and comforting Iraqi Christians - seven men, sixteen women, and three children - who survived the massacre last October 31 in the Syriac Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, and were taken to Rome to be treated for their injuries.

It was Wednesday, December 1, at the end of the general audience. Four days later, at the Angelus on Sunday the 7th, pope Joseph Ratzinger again prayed for the victims of the "continual attacks that are taking place in Iraq against Christians and Muslims."
During those same days, the pope cited other "situations of violence, of intolerance, of suffering that there are in the world." But the insistent reference to Iraq seemed to express unusual concern.
In effect, the attacks on Christians in the country of the Tigris and Euphrates denote a hatred that is ever more distinctly religious, Islamist.
The October 31 attack on the Syriac Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, with 58 dead and many dozens wounded, attacked while they were celebrating the Mass, has been seen in the Vatican as a revealing event.
The dynamics of the massacre leave no doubt. The attackers were wearing explosive belts. They opened fire and threw grenades shouting, "You will all go to hell, but we to paradise. Allah is most great."
During the five hour attack, the terrorists prayed twice and recited the Qur'an as in a mosque.
They devastated the altar, used the crucifix for target practice, and terrorized the children simply because they were "infidels."
What happened over those five terrible hours became known days later, little by little, thanks to the testimonies of the many wounded who were taken for treatment to Rome and other European cities.
Another concern of the pope and of other churchmen concerns the scarce interest that Western governments and public opinion are showing toward these anti-Christian attacks.
If one then looks within the Muslim world, the indifference with which such acts are allowed free rein appears even greater. Voices of condemnation are raised rarely, and feebly. Islamist terrorism seems to be – in common opinion – a simple excess instead of an unacceptable crime.
What seems to find further confirmation here is the idea according to which violence against the infidel is something intrinsic to Islam in general, and not a distortion of it: an idea that was at the center of the lecture in Regensburg, and that pope Ratzinger maintains can be reversed only with an "Enlightenment revolution" on the part of Islam itself.
But to return to the attack on the Syrian Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, the following is a reconstruction published one month later, on November 30, in the Italian newspaper "Il Foglio."
Another dramatic account, gathered by the survivors, was released the same day on "Asia News," the online agency directed by Fr. Bernardo Cervellera of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions:
> "I try to forget, but I will always see the blood stained church of Baghdad"
Meanwhile, in Baghdad and in other places in Iraq the killing of Christians as such continues: the last two, a married couple attacked in their home on the night of Sunday, December 5.
Members of an Al-Qaeda cell held responsible for the attack in the cathedral have been arrested. The Iraqi authorities have promised special protection measures. But the exodus of Christians from Baghdad and Mosul to the safer Kurdistan, in the extreme north of the country, continues.
_________________

OUR LADY OF THE MASSACRE
by Marco Pedersini

Raghada al-Wafi walks quickly through the streets of the Karrada neighborhood, on the shore of the Tigris that overlooks the armored heart of Baghdad, the Green Zone. Her husband is with her, she is content, and smiles. It is Sunday, October 31, and they have good news to share with Fr. Thair Abdallah, the young priest who united them in matrimony: Raghada is expecting a child. They are going to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the big Syriac Catholic church in the neighborhood, its entrance topped by a big cross.
There are two hundred faithful at the Sunday afternoon Mass, including one Chaldean and one Orthodox family. Fr. Wasim is hearing confessions near the entrance, in the shadow of the massive wooden doors. His associate, the elderly Fr. Rafael Qusaimi, is giving the choir its last instructions before the celebration. The singing begins, and Fr. Thair appears to the right of the apse, walking quickly toward the altar. In the Syrian Catholic liturgical year, it is the Sunday of the dedication. A voice echoes with the readings. The letter to the Hebrews 8:1-12, which cites the prophet Jeremiah: "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah . . . I will put my laws in their minds and I will write them upon their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people." The Gospel of Matthew 16: 13-20: "Who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply, 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God'. Jesus said to him in reply, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it'."

It is 5:15, and Fr. Thair is about to finish the homily, when outside of the church a burst of automatic weapon fire breaks the silence. The priest tries to calm the faithful, the shots have to be aimed somewhere else, he says, there is nothing to be afraid of, it is normal in a country that for years has had ears for nothing but the noises of the war. But the shooting continues, and then comes a loud explosion, near the church door. The faithful are terrorized, they want to escape but there's nowhere to run. "Let's get up, let's pray together," Fr. Thair insists. He has no way of knowing it, but a few steps from the church an armed brigade is attacking the headquarters of the stock exchange. A hand grenade has killed two of the guards watching the building. The other guards have fired back, wounding one of the attackers, who is dragged away by his companions across the square outside of the church. The terrorists retreat with rifles leveled, backs facing the facade, and one of them sets off the explosives that they have loaded into the black Jeep Cherokee parked in front of the church. The Jeep erupts into a cloud of dust, and the security guards are disoriented. They believe that they have just fought off an attack on the stock exchange, and instead this was only a diversion, for an attack on a much larger scale.
Fr. Wasim tries to hold the church's wooden door closed, but it is thrown backward by the brigade of armed men, who burst in with faces uncovered, wearing the uniform of the Iraqi army: a classic trick in the jihadist repertoire. At the back of the church, behind the altar, the other two priests are pushing as many of the faithful as possible toward the sacristy, to shield them from the attack. "Leave them alone, take me!" shouts Fr. Wasim, and is immediately hit with a bullet square in the chest. The one who hits him doesn't even know who it is he is shooting. The priest clasps his hands to his chest, and the man turns to the companion beside him: "Who is this?" "He is a priest," the other replies, and unleashes a burst of gunfire on the dying Fr. Wasim.

"Leave them alone, take me!" Fr. Thair also shouts from the altar. He too is dispatched in an instant, and dies in the arms of his dumbfounded mother.
Fr. Rafael succeeds in pushing about seventy of the faithful into the sacristy, to the right of the altar, before the terrorists throw themselves against the door. It holds, but the attackers find an alternative: the room has a little window at the top without any windowpanes, and tossing a few hand grenades inside is a game for the young butchers. The shrapnel from one of the grenades hits Fr. Rafael, wounding him seriously in the abdomen. Others are hit by the bullets that come through the door. A woman shuts her five-month-old son in a drawer, saving him from the attack.
Fr. Thair's mother cannot know this, but she is about to lose her other son, who had gone with her to Mass. The terrorists make everyone lie down on the floor, except for the young men. These must remain standing. One by one, they shoot them down.
*
If it weren't for its sandy color, the graceful architecture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help would seem like an alien installation compared to the monotonous buildings around it. The imposing cross above the facade stands out among the low houses, a reminder of a time when Baghdad was a multicultural city that welcomed people from all over Iraq. The Tigris surrounds the Karrada neighborhood on three sides, making it a Shiite Muslim peninsula with a strong Christian presence, in the heart of the city. Getting here from the Green Zone is as simple as crossing the river, but the Iraqi special forces don't get to the church until six in the evening, forty-five minutes after the attack.
In the meantime, inside, the armed brigade is holding the survivors hostage, and imposing silence by firing at the first sign of movement. At least three of the jihadists are kids, between fourteen and fifteen years old. Each of them wears an explosive belt – with metal ball bearings to increase the killing power – and has an automatic weapon and hand grenades. The government will say afterward that there were five of them, not from Iraq, and that they died during the attack. The overwhelming proof of their foreign origin is held to be the five passports (three Yemeni and two Egyptian) found in the rubble, which was cleaned up hastily the next day while the army blocked the entrance to the church so that no one could see the devastation. The witnesses confirm that the attackers did not speak Iraqi dialects, but the classical Arabic that is used among Arabs of different nationalities. Going by their accents, there were definitely Egyptians, and also a Syrian. This is a relevant detail, seeing that the strategy of Al-Qaeda in Iraq is controlled from areas on the Syrian border, where terrorist leaders operate, like Abu Khalaf, the military commander who was killed recently, and their great ideologue, the seventy-year-old "sheik" Issa al Masri. Issa, which means "Jesus" in Arabic.

The witness accounts, however, tell of eight persons and at least one other who commanded the operations from the terrace around the roof of the church. There may have been even more, to judge by the operation in which almost one month later, on Saturday, November 27, the Iraqi security forces arrested members of an Al-Qaeda cell in the al Mansour neighborhood in Baghdad: twelve men, with toxic material and six tons of explosives, who confessed to taking part in the attack on the church. The initial plan must have been different: bursting in, the jihadist brigade had with it four cases of explosives, which were supposed to explode around the perimeter of the church, collapsing it and killing all of the two hundred faithful present at the Sunday Mass. Why this did not happen is a secret that the five terrorists have taken with them to the grave, or perhaps it is buried in the mind of the unidentified person in civilian clothes whom a guard swears he saw leaving the school next to the church. The survivors recount that about halfway through the attack, one of the terrorists called someone outside with a walkie-talkie. "We're out of bullets, what should we do?" A quick order, with a sinister result: "Okay, now we'll start using the bombs."
Inside the church, while they are keeping the faithful hostage, the terrorists seem strangely relaxed, in spite of the siege by the Iraqi army and the muffled droning of the American helicopters watching the situation from the air. They are so comfortable that they first permit themselves the maghrib, the afternoon prayer, and then the ishà, the evening prayer, among the corpses of their victims.
Outside, the armed forces are waiting for who knows what, because it is clear to everyone that there will be no offer of mediation, from either side. A lay employee of the Baghdad curia who has rushed to the site of the siege tries to make himself useful. He is determined, he wants to make use of his detailed knowledge of the building layout to unblock the situation. But as soon as he tries to offer his help to the soldiers, he is told bluntly "this is our business, get out of here." The soldiers also brusquely push away a man who is begging them to do something to save his wife and two children, a boy and a girl, held hostage in the church. The standoff lasts almost three hours.
*
Night falls. The walls of Our Lady of Perpetual Help turn red, then fade to black. The siege is suspended in an unreal sunset, muddied by the mist, for the entire time from the arrival of the Iraqi army to the final blitz to try to free the hostages. Intermittent gunfire breaks the silence, marking the rhythm of the confrontation into the distance. Neither side studies the other: the wait is on to enact an ending already written.
The terrorists shoot anyone who pulls out a cell phone, as demonstrated by the wounds of two girls hit in the hand and arm when their phones started to ring. They shoot at the first suspicious sound, and the children who cry are killed instantly. Among the splayed bodies, the dead and living are piled up together. One girl recounts: "A chandelier had fallen on me, pinning me down by my side. I had shards of glass stuck in my skin, a man's foot on my head and a girl's body pushing down on my chest, covering me with the blood that was pouring from her wounds." As she heard the bullets whizzing past her, she was able to call her family waiting for her at home: "I was sure that I was going to die, and I wanted to say goodbye to them for the last time: I love you." A member of the brigade shoots the furnace, so the gas will asphyxiate anyone nearby.
The crucifix becomes a shooting target. The terrorists riddle it with gunfire – the survivors recount – shouting mockingly: "Come on, tell him to save you!" And again: "You are infidels. We are here to avenge the burning of the Qur'an and the Muslim women imprisoned in Egypt." They are alluding to the false news, denied even by the Muslim Brotherhood but used as a pretext by Al-Qaeda in the offensive against the Christians, according to which the Egyptian Coptic Church locked up in a convent Camilia Chehata and Wafa Constantine, the wives of two Coptic priests, as punishment for their conversion to Islam.

When the bullets stop flying, the grenade thrown by a terrorist also ends the life of Raghada and of the child she is carrying in her womb. According to some witnesses, the woman met her death while being clutched by one of the terrorists, who had grabbed her and then blown himself up. Nor would her husband be alive to see the raid by the Iraqi army, which starts piling in through the main entrance of the church in a single clump, the umpteenth proof of the stupidity of unprepared and poorly led soldiers. "The Marines are more intelligent," notes Fr. Giorgio Jahola, a priest from Mosul who has come to Rome to have his injuries tended to at the Policlinico Gemelli. "The whole perimeter of the church is surrounded by windows, which can easily be reached from the terrace. The side entrances were usually blocked by cement barriers, but the authorities had had them removed during the two days before the attack. So other passageways were available."
The terrorists were ready: they had already recited the prayer of martyrdom: "Allah is most great, Allah is most great, there is no God but Allah." And they were determined to blow themselves up. Two of them succeeded, a third was stopped by the Iraqi soldiers when, at 9:05, they disconnected the electricity and a voice shouted: "We are the Iraqi forces, get up and be calm: we will save you."
The blitz will not be remembered among the most dazzling in history: the exchange of gunfire lasted for twenty minutes, until 9:25, when the nave and sacristy of the church were liberated. The entrance to the church was then unblocked, and, amid the disorder of the emergency workers, relatives started to run frantically from one hospital to another, in the hope of finding their loved ones still alive somewhere. Inside and around the church, 58 dead were counted, not including the attackers.
Three days later, on Tuesday, women dressed in black accompany seven coffins wrapped in the Iraqi flag. The human rights minister, Wijdan Mikheil, is at the ceremony together with the Shiite political leader Ammar al Hakimm, whose face is streaming with tears. The smoke of the incense fills the air, while more than seven hundred people greet the caskets covered with flowers that advance slowly toward the altar. Two of them hold the bodies of Fr. Thair Fr. Wasim. One moment more and they will be buried together in the cemetery under their church, poor and ravaged.
 

Report finds rising discrimination against Christians in Europe
By Alan Holdren, Rome Correspondent

Rome, Italy, Dec 13, 2010 / 03:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In February, patients in the surgery unit of a public hospital in Bad Soden, Germany, watched as hospital workers moved methodically through the unit taking down 12 crucifixes that hung on the walls of the Protestant-run institution. The workers then threw the crosses into trash bags.
Why were the crosses removed? Because a Muslim patient had complained and the hospital had reason to think it might be sued if the crosses were kept hanging.
In November 2008, a veteran family law judge in Murcia, Spain was fired, fined the equivalent of nearly $25,000, and barred from practicing law for 18 years.
His crime? He delayed the adoption of a little girl by the lesbian partner of the girl’s mother.
Judge Fernando Ferrín Calamita, 51, a practicing Catholic and father of seven, made a legal argument that he was acting in the child’s best interest and in conscientious objection to Spain’s adoption laws.
These were among dozens of examples of religious intolerance against Catholics and other Christians documented in a new report by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe.
The 40-page study was released at the observatory’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria on Dec. 10. The report comes just days after the conclusion of a summit of European leaders in which a top Vatican official urged leaders to pay more attention to discrimination against Rome, Italy, Dec 13, 2010 / 03:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In February, patients in the surgery unit of a public hospital in Bad Soden, Germany, watched as hospital workers moved methodically through the unit taking down 12 crucifixes that hung on the walls of the Protestant-run institution. The workers then threw the crosses into trash bags.
Why were the crosses removed? Because a Muslim patient had complained and the hospital had reason to think it might be sued if the crosses were kept hanging.
In November 2008, a veteran family law judge in Murcia, Spain was fired, fined the equivalent of nearly $25,000, and barred from practicing law for 18 years.
His crime? He delayed the adoption of a little girl by the lesbian partner of the girl’s mother.
Judge Fernando Ferrín Calamita, 51, a practicing Catholic and father of seven, made a legal argument that he was acting in the child’s best interest and in conscientious objection to Spain’s adoption laws.
These were among dozens of examples of religious intolerance against Catholics and other Christians documented in a new report by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe.
The 40-page study was released at the observatory’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria on Dec. 10. The report comes just days after the conclusion of a summit of European leaders in which a top Vatican official urged leaders to pay more attention to discrimination against  Christians.
While religious persecution and intolerance are usually associated with dictatorships or regimes run by religious extremists, the report details the rise of a secularist attitude in European societies that increasingly leads to intolerance against Christian beliefs.
The Observatory’s director, Dr. Gudrun Kugler, said the abuses included the denial of Christians’ rights to free speech and freedom of conscience.
“Religious freedom is endangered especially with regard to its public and its institutional dimension,” she said. “We also receive many reports on the removal of Christian symbols, misrepresentation and negative stereotyping of Christians in the media, and social disadvantages for Christians, such as being ridiculed or overlooked for promotion in the work place.“
Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi said the new report “deserves attention.”
"It is a base on which to judge the dimensions and the nature of the phenomenon” of intolerance and discrimination” he said in an editorial aired on Vatican television.
A great many of the cases the Observatory cite involve Christians being punished for expressing their beliefs about homosexuality and defending their beliefs in traditional marriage.
Often, the report said, anti-discrimination laws are applied in such a way that “causes indirect side-effect discrimination of Christians.” In addition, the report said, “Hate speech legislation has a tendency to indirectly discriminate against Christians, criminalizing core elements of Christian teaching.”
For instance, in July, Spain’s socialist government, which backs gay “marriage,” fined a Christian  television network 100,000 euros for running a series of advertisements in favor of the family and opposing the homosexual lifestyle.
Also in recent years, the commission reported, bishops in Belgium and Scotland faced threats of prosecution from members of Parliament for defending the Church’s teaching on marriage.
The report also raises questions about the neutrality of the European Court of Human Rights, which has gained increasing authority with the push for European unification. The court, for instance, has ruled that crucifixes displayed in Italian schoolrooms violates students’ religious freedom.
The report also cited a 2009 case in which the Catholic University of Milan decided not to renew the contract of a professor who declared in class that Christianity promoted “unmerciful dogmas” and declared original sin to be a “fiction.” The professor also said that “Jesus was through and through a bad human being” and that the Gospel was the “most frightening message ever made known to mankind.”
Later in 2009, the human rights court said Italy had violated the professor’s right to freely express his opinion — effectively placing the professor’s rights to speech above a Christian institution’s rights to preserve and promote its identity through its hiring practices.
The report also details a rising number of what it calls “hate crimes” directed at Christians and Christian symbols, including arson and vandalism of churches across Europe.
At the recently concluded meeting of the 56-nation Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, held in Astana, Kazakhstan, the Vatican’s top diplomat, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, echoed many of the themes raised in this new report.
“It is well documented that Christians are the most discriminated and persecuted religious group,” he said in an address to delegates.
“The international community must combat intolerance and discrimination against Christians with the same determination with which the it fights against hate with respect to other religious communities," he added.
In his comments on the new report, Fr. Lombardi reminded listeners that while Pope Benedict was in England this past September, he also expressed his "concern at the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity ... even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance."
The new report, he said, is an opportunity for reflection and commitment, "not only from those who work for the defense of Christianity and its values, but also of all honest people truly desirous of protecting the values of tolerance and freedom of expression and religion."
 

Former New Age Instructor & Hollywood Actress. New Age Deception, Sharon Lee Giganti's Conversion Story
June 28, 2010

by: Lori Miller
McKinney, TX (MetroCatholic)

It is a real treat to listen to a talented speaker, and even more fantastic when that person speaks about her passion.  But, when that passion is all wrapped up in love for Christ, the experience becomes an exceptional event.  I was treated to this special blessing at the recent GRN(Guadalupe Radio Network) Speaker Series event.  Former Hollywood actress and New Age instructor,  Sharon Lee Giganti presented “The New age Deception”, where she spoke of the dangers of the New Age movement  while artfully interweaving  her own testimony to deliver a powerful message about the all-consuming power and love of the one true God.  Giganti’s story is a wonderful testament to how God can make “beauty rise from ashes.”
Giganti was baptized a Catholic and received Catholic education until the 8th grade.  During the remainder of her teen years, she fell away from the Catholic faith.  As she looks back on this experience, she realized that the Catholic education she received was watered down and did not give her a foundation.  She did not know the truths of the faith as she entered adulthood.  At the height of her acting career, she began looking for something more to life.  She asked a “spiritual friend” how to come to know God and grow spiritually.  That person recommended a book entitled A Science of Mind.  She devoured it and another book called New Design for Living.  In these books, she learned about New Age theology and philosophy, which began her path to believing that it was the key to happiness.  Soon after, she was a follower of the spirit guide who called himself Abraham.  This spirit was channeled through a woman named Ester Hicks.  Since her reconversion to the Catholic faith, Giganti has concluded that this spirit is a demon rather than the self-portrayed loving spirit who offered help and wisdom from the non-physical world.  (Giganti shared that at one point, the spirit Abraham said he was “legion” which is the same name the demons used when Jesus casted them out of a man in Luke 8:26-39.)  While following the teachings of the spirit Abraham, Giganti learned how to live a life worthy of a New Age believer:  a life that would ultimately lead to tragic events and circumstances.

Many of the New Age philosophies are counter-Christian and much of it is borrowed from other world religions (Sufism, Hindu, Zen, and Buddhism).  The spirit Abraham taught about the “Law of Attraction”, which states that one creates one’s own reality with one’s thoughts.  Simply put, if you think about good things, then you will attract good things; if you are happy, then you will attract things that make you happy.  This teaching was further popularized with the book The Secret, which has achieved nationwide popularity thanks to Oprah Winfrey. Additionally, the book A Course in Miracles, has become a popular instruction manual for the New Age movement, along with writings by Marianne Williamson and Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth) and other self proclaimed new age experts.  In all of these New Age teachings, counter-Christian philosophy abounds, such as:

There is no sin; no right nor wrong; no good nor bad
God is everyone and everything.  The human soul is God.
You have many lifetimes to live, so if life isn’t going well, then you will have another chance to get it right
You are a super being and create your own reality with your thoughts.  You are free to do anything you want because you are the only thing real in your reality.  Everything else is an illusion or a “psychic nightmare”
There is no death.  One “reemerges” back into God.
Your feelings and desires are your wisest guidance system. No desire is unacceptable and no place is off-limits.
The devil and hell do not exist (the spirit Abraham said that “the Devil is a whole bunch of hoopla about a whole bunch of nothing.”)
You attract good things by thinking about good things.  You must accept that there are bad things in the world for other people to attract.  When you are feeling joy, bliss, or ecstasy, you are connected to your God-force.  When you are feeling sadness or despair, then you are cutting yourself off from your God-force.
With these teachings, Giganti found that, instead of growing more loving, she grew more callous.  She shunned those who were suffering because she did not want think about suffering and thus loose her God connection.  She realized that she became more animal-like than human.  Using these teachings, she counseled others, which sometimes led them to engage in destructive behaviors such as abortions, adultery, and divorce.  After three horrific tragedies in her life, she came to realize that the teachings in the Bible are truth and that Christ is the Word Incarnate.
The first tragedy involved a young girl who was seeking council on end-of-life issues, particularly suicide.  She wanted to know if suicide was acceptable, and if her family would be devastated by her self-inflicted death.  Giganti counseled her using the teachings of the spirit Abraham.  She told her that every death was a suicide, since we decide when we re-emerge into the non-physical dimension.  Since there is neither good nor bad, suicide was wrong only if she thought it was wrong.  She further explained that her family would not be devastated if she could imagine that they wouldn’t.  This young girl took her own life the next day.  This event was tragic, but it did not pull Giganti away from the new age way of life.  It did not occur to her to ask the girl why she wanted to end her life, because the conversation would engage Giganti in the girl’s suffering and pull her away from her good thoughts and God force.  She wasn’t saddened by the girl’s death because she didn’t really die; according to the spirit Abraham’s teachings, she just reemerged into the non-physical world.
The second tragedy involved another young girl who was a student in The Course in Miracles.  She used New Age thought to rationalize her erratic and destructive behavior.  She would frequently leave her young kids alone to go out and party.  As long as she thought her kids were fine, then that is the reality she created for herself.  She continued to spiral down this destructive path and disappear on binges for days at a time.  She finally decided to wake up from her “psychic nightmare” by putting her kids in the car and driving into a brick wall.  Thankfully, she did not have the opportunity to act on this decision because her kids were taken away from her by CPS, and she was committed to a psychiatric hospital.
The final tragedy hit closest to home.  Her brother battled his own demons through addiction.  As his addictions took hold of him, his behavior became more destructive.  She chose not to reach out to him.  Instead, she decided the best way to deal with his situation was to visualize a better life for him.  She counseled her family to do the same.  They did not intervene or offer the help he needed to turn his life around.  His behavior worsened and tragedy struck when he decided to take the life of his four-month-old son.  He rationalized that he was doing the baby a favor by not having to live in this world.  Her brother is now serving a life sentence for murder without the possibility of parole.
The tragic events that lead to the death of her nephew at the hands of her brother shook her to the core.  She began to question the New Age teachings because they had failed to save her nephew and brother.  She reached out to some new age friends who were reading the Bible, and she decided to check it out.  After reading the Bible, she became convinced that the teachings it contained were the Truth.  This began her walk back to the Catholic faith.  Eventually, she returned home and gave Jesus the ashes of her life destroyed in the fire of the New Age movement.
Giganti has a new mission in life: she seeks “to help others learn the dangers of New Age thinking” and to show them how “Jesus Christ leads to life, and any other way leads to destruction.”  She says that people are attracted to New Age thinking because it lets them feel in control of their own lives.  It relieves guilt and suffering, giving people a false freedom because it teaches that the only real being in one’s reality is one’s self.  These teachings are attractive but they are false.  Giganti knows first-hand how this path leads one only to sadness and tragedy.  The New Age movement teaches one to live a self-centered lifestyle with little regard to the consequences of morally wrong choices.  Once these choices are made, the consequences are real and the life of the new age follower and those around her suffers or is destroyed.  Following the teachings of Christ is what leads the Children of God to life, truth, love and joy.
Giganti urges us to know the truths of our faith.  We should be lifelong learners in the faith and pass that knowledge and passion on to our children.  If we know and follow the teachings of Christ, then we will be able to discern what philosophies and activities are counter-Christian and fall under the new age movement.  She warns that the diabolical tools used by mediums such as tarot cards, rune stones, and Ouija boards are very real. In the world of Harry Potter, Twilight and The Wizards of Waverly Place, our children need to know the dangers of such activities.  We must instill in them the desire to live in the light of God and not be attracted to the darkness of the world.  She also reminds us that the supernatural power of God cannot be harnessed by man.  Any energy called upon to heal body, mind, and soul is not from God.  God is the great healer whom we should call upon in our hour of need.  Exposing ourselves to such practices puts our lives and souls in close proximity to diabolical forces.
Giganti’s courage not only to walk away from the New Age movement, but to speak out against it is truly inspiring.  As a former New Age instructor, her public denouncing of New Age thought and reasoning takes an incredible amount of courage and faith.  And she does this out of love for her brothers and sisters in Christ.  Just as Christ doesn’t want to lose even one sheep from his flock, Giganti doesn’t want to lose anymore brothers and sisters to this destructive movement.  Her heart is beating with great love for our Lord and his flock.  Let us all pray for the success of the mission Christ has called her to live.
 

Vatican: Pope Compares Fundamentalism With Secularism
By GAIA PIANIGIANI
Published: December 17, 2010

Pope Benedict XVI compared religious fundamentalism to secularism on Thursday, decrying violent attacks on Christians in the Middle East and more subtle hostility from Western institutions. “It should be clear that religious fundamentalism and secularism are alike in that both represent extreme forms of a rejection of legitimate pluralism and the principle of secularity,” he said. He also decried “hostility and prejudice” against Christians in Asia, Africa and in the Middle East, citing the October attack on a Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad in which 58 people died. “Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith,” he said.

Calling on Europe to be “reconciled with its own Christian roots,” the pope offered harsh, if oblique, criticism of recent decisions in European courts allowing the removal of crucifixes from public buildings and the legalization of gay marriage.

“Whenever the legal system at any level, national or international, allows or tolerates religious or antireligious fanaticism, it fails in its mission, which is to protect and promote justice and the rights of all,” he said
 
 

Thousands of Germans quit Catholic Church

Thousands of Germans have quit the Catholic Church in the wake of a series of sex and corruption scandals that have left the institution reeling.

The Bishop of Osnabruck Franz-Josef Bode falls to the floor at the Dome of Osnabrueck. Bode is the first German Bishop to apologize for the sexual abuse scandals Photo: EPA

By Matthew Day, Warsaw 4:29PM GMT 20 Dec 2010 The Thelegraph

In one diocese alone, Rottenburg-Stuttgart, by mid December 17,659 had turned their back on the Church, compared to 4,563 for the whole of 2009, according to new research by the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper and the DPA press agency.
Augsberg, reflecting a downward trend experienced by most dioceses, saw its flock decline as 11,351 left the Church in comparison to the 6,953 the year, while in Trier 7,029 people quit, a 2,500 increase on the previous year.
"I have never experienced anything like this since my ordination in 1969," said Bishop Friedhelm Hofmann of Wurzburg, adding that "every single departure is one too many".
The bishop suggested that the exodus was linked to the sex and corruption scandals that have blighted the Catholic Church this year both in Germany and abroad.

The desertation poses potential financial problems for the Church – under German law a recognised member of a church can donate some of their taxes to the institution, so if people renounce their membership the flow of money diminishes.
 

Pope says ordaining women is not the church's choice to make

By Rita Fitch
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In his latest book, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed that the church has "no authority" to ordain women as priests and rejected the idea that the rule was formed only because the church originated in a patriarchal society.
The pope said that man did not produce the form of the church, and does not have the power to change it. Christ gave the form of the priesthood when he chose his male Apostles, he said in the book-interview, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times."
"The church has 'no authority' to ordain women. The point is not that we are saying we don't want to, but that we can't," he said. This requires obedience by Catholics today, he added.
"This obedience may be arduous in today's situation, but it is important precisely for the church to show that we are not a regime based on arbitrary rule. We cannot do what we want," the pope said.
In the book, the pope responded to the argument that ordination was restricted to men only because priestesses would have been unthinkable 2,000 years ago.
"That is nonsense, since the world was full of priestesses at the time," the pope answered. "All religions had their priestesses, and the astonishing thing was actually that they were absent from the community of Jesus Christ."
The pope said there can be no question of discrimination in the church because women perform so many meaningful functions.
"Women have so eminent a significance that in many respects they shape the image of the church more than men do," he said, noting famous religious figures such as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

Pope urges respect for embryos

By NICOLE WINFIELD
The Associated Press

Saturday, November 27, 2010; 3:16 PM
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI called Saturday for politicians, the media and world leaders to show more respect for human life at its earliest stages, saying embryos aren't just biological material but dynamic, autonomous individuals.
Benedict made the comments during a vespers service to mark the beginning of Advent, the period leading up to Christmas when the faithful mark the birth of Christ. This year, the Vatican urged bishops around the world to make the service a vigil for "nascent human life."
The service came amid continued fallout from the pope's remarks about condoms and HIV contained in a book-length interview published this week.
While stressing that condoms aren't a real or moral solution to fighting HIV, Benedict said people who use them are edging toward a greater morality because they're aiming to protect their partners from HIV - even when a pregnancy is possible.
His comments set off intense debate among theologians and lay Catholics alike amid confusion about what he meant and whether he was changing church teaching about artificial contraception. He was not, but the confusion nevertheless required not one but two papally approved clarifications from the Vatican spokesman.
As if to reaffirm church teaching on the sacredness of human life, Benedict stressed the need to protect human life from the moment of conception in his homily Saturday.
Science itself has shown how autonomous the embryo is, how it interacts with the mother and develops in a coordinated and complex way, Benedict said.
"It's not an accumulation of biological material, but a new living being, dynamic and marvelously ordered, a new individual of the human species," Benedict said.
He urged politicians, economic leaders and the media to promote a culture that respected life, decrying the "cultural tendencies" that seek to undermine it.
"Unfortunately, even after birth the life of children continue to be exposed to abandonment, hunger, misery, sickness, abuse, violence and exploitation," Benedict said.
 

Wednesday, 24 November 2010
mercatornet.com
Reorienting sexuality

The idea that sexual orientation is fixed is based on an impoverished view of the human person, says a former lesbian.

If you have undergone modern sexual education, followed the gay-marriage debates on television, or simply unconsciously imbibed the sexual ethos of this culture, you are probably familiar with the idea of sexual orientation. This is the theory that every human being has an innate, fixed set of sexual attractions either for the opposite sex, for their own sex, or for both.
This is the Western understanding of homosexuality that has developed over the course of the past couple of hundred years. It was first formulated around the time of the French Revolution, and gained currency with the rise of the psychological sciences during the twentieth century. For about a hundred years now the fundamental point of disagreement has centered around the question of whether same-sex attraction is a biological trait, or a psychological disorder. At the moment, most gay-rights rhetoric assumes the former (though this is by no means universally believed within the gay community) while most conservative organizations assume the latter.

What remains unexamined is the assumption that this is an accurate way of envisioning human sexuality in the first place. There has been some work by feminist and lesbian scholars suggesting that female sexuality, at least, is more fluid than “biology” suggests. The terms “LUG” (Lesbian Until Graduation) and “hasbian” both bear tribute to the fact that some women experience same-sex attractions at a particular point in their lives, and then transition into a heterosexual identity without suffering any psychological upheaval. Other women may comfortably embrace a heterosexual identity and lifestyle for years, only to have same-sex attractions arise late in life.

"I was certain that I was a lesbian"

I fell into the former category: earlier in my life, I was certain that I was a lesbian. I was secretly involved in a lesbian relationship for years, and my attempts to date boys on the side ranged from dismal to disastrous. I found physical intimacy with men uncomfortable at best. When I became a Catholic, I still believed that homosexuality was immutable, and I did not believe in “praying away the gay”. It came as something of a surprise, therefore, when I found myself falling in love, and being physically attracted towards a man. 

Bisexuality would not seem to account for the change. I have not experienced on-going, relatively equal attraction for both sexes. There has been a substantial, noticeable, and decisive swing in the attractions themselves. I would now find the prospect of sexual involvement with a woman just as uncomfortable and sexually unappealing as I once found the idea of intimacy with men.

There is some acknowledgment of this sort of thing in the scientific literature, but almost never discussed in the public forum. The dogmatic assertion that if you are gay once, you will always be gay, overshadows the real experience of women who have undergone a change in their sexual attractions.

Although this experience is more common among women, there is evidence that some men have similar experiences. David Morrison, in Beyond Gay, describes a change in his attractions following a religious conversion. Other writers, usually evangelical Christians, have reported a similar experience. On the other side of the fence there are men like Jack Malebranche, whose book Androphilia describes his homosexuality in terms of preference and choice. It was something that he tried because he was “a kid who wanted to try everything that everyone else was afraid of”, and found that he liked it.

The grace of God and electroshock therapy

The primary problem with the idea of innate gayness is that it undermines the integration of sexuality into a complete human identity. Those who place homosexuality at the center of their identity do so by choice, not by necessity: they choose to prioritize sexuality above other aspects of the self, and to build up an identity from that foundation. Other people may place different concerns – ideology, religion, culture, family – on a more important footing.

Unfortunately, the current models of homosexuality deny the legitimacy of such choices. Literature on the subject routinely claims that if someone experiences homosexual desire, it is deeply injurious not to pursue that desire. Other considerations are to be modified or cast aside in order to develop a gay or lesbian identity.

Most of the literature that takes this line justifies it by pointing to “cures” that have proved ineffective and damaging. The twentieth century produced some truly macabre methods to change same-sex attraction: testicular transplants, electroshock therapies, Clockwork Orange style brainwashing experiments, and various forms of psychosocial humiliation have all been tried, with predictably bad results.

From this arises the assumption that anyone who changes their sexuality must be doing something equally self-deforming and bizarre. I was put into this pigeonhole once when I was portrayed in a made-for-TV movie; the character loosely based on myself had suffered electroshock therapy and was married to a man who looked more like a woman than she did. In reality, I’ve had no contact with shrinks, or with ex-gay self-help groups, or with straight-boot-camp, and I’m married to a man who resembles a Byzantine icon of an Old Testament patriarch.

For me, as for others, it was a matter of other things being more important than sexuality. My ideological and philosophical identity was always the most fundamental aspect of my self; when my ideology shifted, my sexuality followed it quite naturally, without any need for bizarre or damaging outside interventions.

Obviously this is not the case for everyone, but it is common enough to seriously undermine the idea of a fixed sexual orientation.

Shifting attractions

Sexual orientation cannot be reduced either to biology or to psychology, because sexual attraction cannot be so reduced. Attraction is a complicated matter. People are attracted to others who share a similar sense of aesthetics, to people with similar ideological convictions, to those who resemble characters from movies or books that are personally appealing, to those with whom they have close emotional relationships, and so forth. We are not like animals whose attractions are based solely on the length of the dominant male’s eye-stalks, or the color of his plumage.

Everyone has had the experience of being sexually attracted to someone, and then having the fires doused upon learning that the object of their affections has odious habits or holds an offensive set of beliefs. Most people have also had the experience of finding someone physically unappealing at first, and of coming to feel differently as an emotional relationship develops.

To a certain degree this is the result of natural change, but it is also influenced by one’s choices. Emotional relationships develop because of the choice to spend time with another. Ideological positions are a collaboration between the intellect and the will. Aesthetics can change as a result of deliberately seeking or eschewing certain types of beauty. Human personality is not fixed; it is malleable. It may not be possible to make radical changes all at once, but the will is much more powerful than the rhetoric of biological determinism gives it credit for.

This is just as true on the level of classes of people as it is on the level of individuals. A man who is originally repulsed by people of different races can teach himself to see the beauty in those who do not resemble him. A woman who finds men frightening or off-putting can develop an increased understanding of, and respect for masculinity. These changes are not only possible, they happen all the time – and they can happen to people who think that they are incapable of having a sexual relationship either with women or with men.

Which is why I do not believe in sexual orientation as a fixed variable in human personality. Human identity is too rich, too multifaceted, too unpredictable and varied for such a simplistic notion to encompass or explain it.

Melinda Selmys is the author of Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and Catholicism (Our Sunday Visitor, 2009). She is a regular columnist with the National Catholic Register, and the fiction editor for www.vulgatamagazine.org
 

Pakistani Christian Accused of Blasphemy Set Free

Benedict XVI Had Appealed for Her Freedom

WASHINGTON, D.C., NOV. 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- A Pakistani woman sentenced to death for allegedly blaspheming Mohammed has been released from prison following an international outcry that included a specific plea on her behalf from the Pope.

Asia Bibi was pardoned by the president of Pakistan, the group International Christian Concern reported today.

Bibi, 45, was charged a year ago for blaspheming Mohammed in a conflict with fellow farm workers. She was sentenced to death earlier this month.

At the conclusion of last Wednesday's general audience, Benedict XVI appealed for her freedom.

He mentioned the plight of Pakistani Christians in general, who along with Hindus make up only a 5% minority in the Muslim country.  "In these days, the international community is following with great concern the difficult situation of Christians in Pakistan, who are often victims of violence and discrimination," the Holy Father said.   Then he mentioned Bibi specifically: "Today I particularly express my spiritual closeness to Mrs. Asia Bibi and her family, asking that she be given full liberty as soon as possible. As well, I pray for those who find themselves in similar situations, so that their human dignity and fundamental rights be fully respected."

Human rights groups have long decried Pakistan's blasphemy laws as a means by which people take advantage of religious minorities.

It is reported that Bibi is now in hiding out of fear for her safety. There are precedents of those accused of blasphemy in Pakistan being killed by vigilantes.
 

November 13, 2010
Afghan convert to Christianity is charged with crimes punishable by death
Mindy Belz (Associated Press)

For more than a decade, the second Sunday in November has been commemorated in churches worldwide as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. This year it is also the day that Sayed Mossa, an Afghan convert from Islam to Christianity, has been scheduled to stand trial.

Afghan government officials announced earlier this week that they have scheduled that court date for Mossa’s case—which WORLD has been covering (see “Fugitives,” Aug. 28, 2010, and “Deeds done in darkness,” Nov. 20, 2010, which includes a letter written by Mossa pleading for help)—even though the charges and his legal representation remain in doubt.

According to Westerners closely following his case in Kabul, Mossa is likely to be charged with espionage and with conversion to Christianity, or apostasy—crimes that may be punishable by death under Islamic law. The court session may be televised, officials have said, and it is likely that Mossa will be asked to renounce his faith.

Mossa was arrested in late May as part of a crackdown against Afghan converts to Christianity that followed a television broadcast of several baptisms. He has been held in a prison in Kabul under worsening conditions and has been subjected to daily beatings, torture, and sexual abuse. Court-appointed legal counsel, all Muslims, have refused to take his case because he is considered an apostate. Officials from the International Committee on the Red Cross, where Mossa worked for 15 years, visited him twice, and he has received other Western visitors, including representatives from the U.S. embassy. They confirmed that Mossa had been tortured and successfully pressured the Afghan government to move him to another prison, away from other prisoners. That took place Oct. 29.

But diplomatic pressure has so far failed to secure Mossa’s release or the dropping of charges—despite Afghanistan’s avowed interest in being a legitimate member of the international community. The Karzai government is a signatory of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, which calls for freedom of religion and equal access to “a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.” It also states that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Afghanistan’s constitution, enacted with U.S. assistance in 2003, also states in Article 2: “Followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law.”

Mossa, 45, is married and the father of six children. His oldest child is 8 years old and one is disabled. Mossa himself is an amputee. His case comes to trial as radical Muslims with ties to al-Qaeda announced earlier this week that Christians in the Middle East are “legitimate targets,” and follows the bombings and hostage-takings that have targeted churches and Christian homes, killing over 60 in Baghdad.

As one Westerner working in Kabul stated to U.S. officials regarding the case, “The U.S. government has been actively engaged in Afghanistan since 2001, spending billions of dollars, exerting millions of hours of manpower, and losing precious American lives in order to ensure that the Afghan people enjoy these basic human rights. If one cannot enjoy these rights, none can enjoy them.”

UPDATE (Nov. 15, 2010): Court officers on Sunday postponed the trial of Afghan convert Sayed Mossa due to the Muslim holiday of Eid. They say trial will be held next Sunday, Nov. 21. Meanwhile, according to Westerners close to the case, Afghan officials have not formally stated the charges against Mossa (though they are likely to be conversion from Islam and espionage), they have not allowed him legal representation, and they have refused requests from family members to see his court file.
 

Over 100 Catholic clergy attend exorcism training in Baltimore
By Marianne Medlin, Staff Writer

         Bishop Thomas Paprocki

Baltimore, Md., Nov 17, 2010 / 05:58 am (CNA).- Despite the intrigue and attention given to the topic of exorcism, the primary work of the Devil lies in daily “temptation,” Bishop Thomas Paprocki said, following a successful exorcism training weekend hosted by the U.S. bishops in Baltimore.
The Conference on the Liturgical and Pastoral Practice of Exorcism took place Nov. 12-13, just before the bishops' annual fall assembly. According to Bishop Paprocki, who chairs the Bishop's Committee on Canonical Affairs, the program came about after an increasing number of inquiries from priests in the U.S.
Because only a “small number” of priests have undergone exorcism training, the conference was held “really to provide some guidance for bishops,” he said.
He explained that exorcism training falls under the jurisdiction of the canonical affairs committee because of the requirement in canon law that says a priest needs permission from his bishop to perform an exorcism.
Over 100 bishops and priests attend the two day conference, which Bishop Paprocki said they described as “very helpful.”
In an interview with CNA, he said that “the reality is that an exorcism is really rare. It's really something rather extraordinary because possession – a person being possessed by a devil or demon – is also very rare.”
“Given the fact that possession and exorcisms are rare, people tend to think that that's the only activity of the Devil,” and they mistakenly think that “if I'm not possessed, I don't need to worry about the Devil,” he said.
However, it's “quite the opposite,” he explained. “The ordinary work of the Devil is temptation and everybody has to face that everyday.”
“The ordinary response to dealing with temptation” can be found in “the ordinary means of spiritual life that the church offers: the Sacraments, going to Confession, receiving Holy Communion, saying prayers and devotions, the Rosary, blessings, Holy Water, things like that,” he said.
“And in fact, I would go so far as to say that the Sacrament of Penance is more powerful than an exorcism.
“An exorcism is a type of blessing in effect – it's a sacramental – whereas the Sacrament of Penance is actually a sacrament,” the bishop explained.
“So if we live a good life, a good spiritual life that's sound, we don't need to worry about that.”
Bishop Paprocki smiled as he clarified that exorcism is ”sensationalized in the movies,” and that demonic possession “is not contagious.”
Usually it's needed “because people have willingly and freely opened the door to the Devil, looking for that kind of involvement and enjoying the pleasures that the Devil has to offer,” he said.
“It's a relationship – a relationship between a human person and a fallen angel – a devil.”
“Exorcism,” he explained, “is breaking that relationship,” and it “starts with the person renouncing Satan.”
Primarily, it “involves getting a person to renounce that relationship,” and “secondly, for a priest to intervene and invoke the power of Christ to break that relationship.”
Speaking on what determines the need for an exorcism, Bishop Paprocki said that “we use the principle that you have to exclude all the natural explanations before you resort to the supernatural.”
“That means getting a medical exam” and a “psychiatric assessment” first, he clarified. If a person is mentally unwell, bringing up the suggestion that he or she is possessed would undoubtedly make the situation worse.
“That's why a careful screening and permission from the bishop is needed,” he explained
 

17 November 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11777482
Pope pleads for life of condemned Pakistani woman

 Asia Bibi, seen here in an undated family photo
 

The Pope has called for the release of a Pakistani Christian woman facing the death sentence on charges of blasphemy.

Pope Benedict XVI told his weekly public audience that Christians in Pakistan "are often victims of violence and discrimination".
"I feel close to Asia Bibi and her family and I ask that she be released as soon as possible," he said.
Ms Bibi is believed to be the first woman sentenced to death under Pakistan's blasphemy law.
The 45-year-old mother was sentenced to death on Friday by a court in the town of Nankana, about 75km (45 miles) from the city of Lahore in Punjab province.
She allegedly committed blasphemy after getting into an argument last year with a group of women in her village.
No-one has ever been executed under Pakistan's blasphemy law, but about 10 accused have been murdered before the completion of their trials, correspondents say.
 

11/09/2010 13:06
PAKISTAN
Punjab: Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Punjab:-Christian-woman-sentenced-to-death-for-blasphemy-19940.html

For the first time, a woman is sentenced to death in Pakistan for this kind of “offence”. The blasphemy law was introduced in 1986 by then Pakistani dictator Zia-ul Haq and since then it has become a tool for discrimination and violence. Part of the Pakistan Penal Code, the law imposes life in prison for defiling the Qur’an and death for insulting Muhammad.

Islamabad (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Pakistan has “crossed a line” in sentencing a Christian woman to death for blasphemy. Asia Bibi, a 37-year-old farm worker mother of two, was convicted of committing blasphemy before her fellow workers during a heated discussion about religion in the village of Ittanwali in June last year.
Some of the women workers had reportedly been pressuring Bibi to renounce her Christian faith and accept Islam. During one discussion, Bibi responded by speaking of how Jesus had died on the cross for the sins of humanity and asking the Muslim women what Muhammad had done for them.
The Muslim women took offence and began beating Bibi. Afterwards she was locked in a room. According to Release International, a mob reportedly formed and “violently abused” her and her children.
The charity, which supports persecuted Christians, said that blasphemy charges were brought against Bibi because of pressure from local Muslim leaders.
Release International’s chief executive, Andy Dipper, expressed his shock at Sunday’s ruling. “Pakistan has crossed a line in passing the death sentence on a woman for blasphemy,” he said.
In addition to the death sentence, Bibi was also fined the equivalent for an unskilled worker of two and a half years’ wages.
Another Christian woman, Martha Bibi (no relation to Asia), is also on trial in Lahore for blasphemy.
According to the National Commission on Justice and Peace (NCJP) of the Catholic Church, between 1986 and August 2009, at least 974 people have been charged for defiling the Qur’an or insulting the Prophet Muhammad. They include 479 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 from other religions.
The blasphemy law has often been used as a pretext for personal attacks or vendettas as well as extra-judicial murders. Overall, 33 people have died this way at the hands of individuals or crazed mobs.
 

Polish town, Swiebodzin, erects world's largest Jesus Christ statue--bigger than Rio de Janeiro's

BY Aliyah Shahid

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, November 6th 2010, 4:11 PM

SKARZYNSKI/Getty
A crane lifts the head on the world's largest statue of Jesus Christ in Swiebodzin, western Poland, on Saturday That is one giant Jesus.
Workers in a small town in Poland have completed what they say is the world's biggest statue of Jesus Christ.
At 167 feet tall, the one in Swiebodzin soars even higher than the famed Christ the Redeemer monument in Rio de Janeiro, which is 125 feet tall. The statue is similar to the one in Brazil, depicting Jesus
standing tall with his arms outstretched.
The Polish one, however, has a large golden crown and sits on a mound.

After the construction was delayed by strong winds, a crane lifted the shoulders, arms and head onto the statue on Saturday. The arms and shoulders weigh 30 tons alone.
The idea came from retired local priest, Rev. Sylwester Zawadzki. Residents and nearby business owners said they hope it will make their 22,000-person town a landmark and bring in money to their
community.

"I'm thrilled,' Emily Zoladz, 58, told The Associated Press as she watched the statue being constructed. "The statue will make Swiebodzin famous all over Poland."
The project has divided Poles has divided the deeply Catholic population and secular society, with several calling the project tacky.
But many, including 60-year-old Danuta Gordzelewska, who gathered to watch the final construction, were thrilled with the project.
"I am extremely proud," she said as the statue's head was lowered into its final place.
 
 

Papal trip to Spain. Benedict XVI urges Western countries to be open to God

November 6, 2010. (ONLY VIDEO NEWS) Pope Benedict launched a called Europe to "meet God without fear". "One cannot worship God without taking care of his sons and daughters; and man cannot be served without asking who his Father is and answering the question about him. The Europe of science and technology, the Europe of civilization and culture, must be at the same time a Europe open to transcendence and fraternity with other continents".FULL SPEECH:

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,
I give thanks to God for the gift of being here in this splendid square filled with artistic, cultural and spiritual significance. During this Holy Year, I come among you as a pilgrim among pilgrims, in the company of all those who come here thirsting for faith in the Risen Christ, a faith proclaimed and transmitted with fidelity by the apostles, among whom was James the Great, who has been venerated at Compostela from time immemorial.
I extend my gratitude to the Most Reverend Julián Barrio Barrio, Archbishop of this local church, for his words of welcome, to their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Asturias for the kind presence, and likewise to the Cardinals and to my many Brother Bishops and priests here today. My greeting also goes to members of the Camino de Santiago group of the European Parliament, as well as to the national, regional and local authorities who are attending this celebration. This is eloquent of respect for the Successor of Peter and also of the profound emotion that Saint James of Compostela awakens in Galicia and in the other peoples of Spain, which recognizes the Apostle as its patron and protector. I also extend warm greetings to the consecrated persons, seminarians and lay faithful who take part in this Eucharistic celebration, and in a very special way I greet the pilgrims who carry on the genuine spirit of Saint James, without which little or nothing can be understood of what takes place here.
With admirable simplicity, the first reading states: "The apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord with great power" (Acts 4:33). Indeed, at the beginning of all that Christianity has been and still is, we are confronted not with a human deed or project, but with God, who declares Jesus to be just and holy in the face of the sentence of a human tribunal that condemned him as a blasphemer and a subversive; God who rescued Jesus from death; God who will do justice to all who have been unjustly treated in history.
The apostles proclaim: "We are witnesses to these things and so is the Holy Spirit whom God gives to those who are obedient to him" (Acts 5:32). Thus they gave witness to the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, whom they knew as he preached and worked miracles. Brothers and sisters, today we are called to follow the example of the apostles, coming to know the Lord better day by day and bearing clear and valiant witness to his Gospel. We have no greater treasure to offer to our contemporaries. In this way, we will imitate Saint Paul who, in the midst of so many tribulations, setbacks and solitude, joyfully exclaimed: "We have this treasure in earthenware vessels, to show that such transcendent power does not come from us" (2 Cor 4:7).
Beside these words of the Apostle of the Gentiles stand those of the Gospel that we have just heard; they invite us to draw life from the humility of Christ who, following in every way the will of his Father, came to serve, "to give his life in ransom for many" (Mt 20:28). For those disciples who seek to follow and imitate Christ, service of neighbour is no mere option but an essential part of their being. It is a service that is not measured by worldly standards of what is immediate, material or apparent, but one that makes present the love of God to all in every way and bears witness to him even in the simplest of actions. Proposing this new way of dealing with one another within the community, based on the logic of love and service, Jesus also addresses "the rulers of the nations" since, where self-giving to others is lacking, there arise forms of arrogance and exploitation that leave no room for an authentic integral human promotion. I would like this message to reach all young people: this core content of the Gospel shows you in particular the path by which, in renouncing a selfish and short-sighted way of thinking so common today, and taking on instead Jesus’ own way of thinking, you may attain fulfilment and become a seed of hope.
The celebration of this Holy Year of Compostela also brings this to mind. This is what, in the secret of their heart, knowing it explicitly or sensing it without being able to express it, so many pilgrims experience as they walk the way to Santiago de Compostela to embrace the Apostle. The fatigue of the journey, the variety of landscapes, their encounter with peoples of other nationalities - all of this opens their heart to what is the deepest and most common bond that unites us as human beings: we are in quest, we need truth and beauty, we need an experience of grace, charity, peace, forgiveness and redemption. And in the depth of each of us there resounds the presence of God and the working of the Holy Spirit. Yes, to everyone who seeks inner silence, who keeps passions, desires and immediate occupations at a distance, to the one who prays, God grants the light to find him and to acknowledge Christ. Deep down, all those who come on pilgrimage to Santiago do so in order to encounter God who, reflected in the majesty of Christ, welcomes and blesses them as they reach the Pórtico de la Gloria.
From this place, as a messenger of the Gospel sealed by the blood of Peter and James, I raise my eyes to the Europe that came in pilgrimage to Compostela. What are its great needs, fears and hopes? What is the specific and fundamental contribution of the Church to that Europe which for half a century has been moving towards new forms and projects? Her contribution is centred on a simple and decisive reality: God exists and he has given us life. He alone is absolute, faithful and unfailing love, that infinite goal that is glimpsed behind the good, the true and the beautiful things of this world, admirable indeed, but insufficient for the human heart. Saint Teresa of Jesus understood this when she wrote: "God alone suffices".
Tragically, above all in nineteenth century Europe, the conviction grew that God is somehow man’s antagonist and an enemy of his freedom. As a result, there was an attempt to obscure the true biblical faith in the God who sent into the world his Son Jesus Christ, so that no one should perish but that all might have eternal life (cf. Jn 3:16).
The author of the Book of Wisdom, faced with a paganism in which God envied or despised humans, puts it clearly: how could God have created all things if he did not love them, he who in his infinite fullness, has need of nothing (cf. Wis 11:24-26)? Why would he have revealed himself to human beings if he did not wish to take care of them? God is the origin of our being and the foundation and apex of our freedom, not its opponent. How can mortal man build a firm foundation and how can the sinner be reconciled with himself? How can it be that there is public silence with regard to the first and essential reality of human life? How can what is most decisive in life be confined to the purely private sphere or banished to the shadows? We cannot live in darkness, without seeing the light of the sun. How is it then that God, who is the light of every mind, the power of every will and the magnet of every heart, be denied the right to propose the light that dissipates all darkness? This is why we need to hear God once again under the skies of Europe; may this holy word not be spoken in vain, and may it not be put at the service of purposes other than its own. It needs to be spoken in a holy way. And we must hear it in this way in ordinary life, in the silence of work, in brotherly love and in the difficulties that years bring on.
Europe must open itself to God, must come to meet him without fear, and work with his grace for that human dignity which was discerned by her best traditions: not only the biblical, at the basis of this order, but also the classical, the medieval and the modern, the matrix from which the great philosophical, literary, cultural and social masterpieces of Europe were born.
This God and this man were concretely and historically manifested in Christ. It is this Christ whom we can find all along the way to Compostela for, at every juncture, there is a cross which welcomes and points the way. The cross, which is the supreme sign of love brought to its extreme and hence both gift and pardon, must be our guiding star in the night of time. The cross and love, the cross and light have been synonymous in our history because Christ allowed himself to hang there in order to give us the supreme witness of his love, to invite us to forgiveness and reconciliation, to teach us how to overcome evil with good. So do not fail to learn the lessons of that Christ whom we encounter at the crossroads of our journey and our whole life, in whom God comes forth to meet us as our friend, father and guide. Blessed Cross, shine always upon the lands of Europe!
Allow me here to point out the glory of man, and to indicate the threats to his dignity resulting from the privation of his essential values and richness, and the marginalization and death visited upon the weakest and the poorest. One cannot worship God without taking care of his sons and daughters; and man cannot be served without asking who his Father is and answering the question about him. The Europe of science and technology, the Europe of civilization and culture, must be at the same time a Europe open to transcendence and fraternity with other continents, and open to the living and true God, starting with the living and true man. This is what the Church wishes to contribute to Europe: to be watchful for God and for man, based on the understanding of both which is offered to us in Jesus Christ.
Dear friends, let us raise our eyes in hope to all that God has promised and offers us. May he give us his strength; may he reinvigorate the Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela; may he renew the faith of his sons and daughters and assist them in fidelity to their vocation to sow and strengthen the Gospel, at home and abroad.
May Saint James, the companion of the Lord, obtain abundant blessings for Galicia and the other peoples of Spain, elsewhere in Europe and overseas, wherever the Apostle is a sign of Christian identity and a promoter of the proclamation of Christ.

"Europe, Be Not Afraid!"
From Santiago de Compostela and from Barcelona, Benedict XVI's appeal that the continent open itself to God and return to pronouncing his name not in vain, but in joy and holiness. With the cross as the "pole star"
by Sandro Magister

ROME, November 8, 2010 – As he almost always does after one of his voyages, at the general audience next Wednesday Benedict XVI will comment on the visit he made on Saturday and Sunday to Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona.
But one thing became clear right from the start of the trip. The pope's gaze did not remain confined to the two cities, and not even to Spain, but embraced Europe and humanity as a whole.

In Barcelona, consecrating the basilica of the Sagrada Família – a masterpiece by Antoni Gaudí, but also a joint project underway for more than a century, like one of the ancient cathedrals – pope Joseph Ratzinger presented it as a universal example of Christian art that is not closed in on itself, but intends to set before all men "the mystery revealed in the birth, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ."
This, in fact, is what he said in one of the key passages of the homily at the Mass of dedication for the church, on Sunday, November 7:
"In this place, Gaudí desired to unify that inspiration which came to him from the three books which nourished him as a man, as a believer and as an architect: the book of nature, the book of sacred Scripture and the book of the liturgy. In this way he brought together the reality of the world and the history of salvation, as recounted in the Bible and made present in the liturgy. He made stones, trees and human life part of the church so that all creation might come together in praise of God, but at the same time he brought the sacred images outside so as to place before people the mystery of God revealed in the birth, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
"In this way, he brilliantly helped to build our human consciousness, anchored in the world yet open to God, enlightened and sanctified by Christ.In this he accomplished one of the most important tasks of our times: overcoming the division between human consciousness and Christian consciousness, between living in this temporal world and being open to eternal life, between the beauty of things and God as beauty. Antoni Gaudí did this not with words but with stones, lines, planes, and points. Indeed, beauty is one of mankind’s greatest needs; it is the root from which the branches of our peace and the fruits of our hope come forth. Beauty also reveals God because, like him, a work of beauty is pure gratuity; it calls us to freedom and draws us away from selfishness."
*
Another key moment of the voyage was the homily at the Mass on Saturday, November 6, in the square of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
In it, Benedict XVI clearly summarized his overall vision of the mission assigned to the Church in Europe and the world today.
Leading men to open themselves to God – and not to "any sort of god," or worse, to an "enemy" one like that of the ancient and modern forms of paganism, but to that God who loves "to the extreme" as revealed by the cross of Jesus – appeared once again as the key to understanding this pontificate.
In fact, after saying that the journey of so many pilgrims on foot to Santiago de Compostela expresses a search "for truth and beauty, for an experience of grace, of charity and peace, of forgiveness and redemption," and that "in the deepest part of all these men resounds the presence of God and the action of the Holy Spirit," the pope continued as in the following passage:

FROM BENEDICT XVI'S HOMILY IN SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA
... Deep down, all those who come on pilgrimage to Santiago do so in order to encounter God who, reflected in the majesty of Christ, welcomes and blesses them as they reach the Pórtico de la Gloria.
From this place, as a messenger of the Gospel sealed by the blood of Peter and James, I raise my eyes to the Europe that came in pilgrimage to Compostela. What are its great needs, fears and hopes? What is the specific and fundamental contribution of the Church to that Europe which for half a century has been moving towards new forms and projects?
Her contribution is centred on a simple and decisive reality: God exists and he has given us life. He alone is absolute, faithful and unfailing love, that infinite goal that is glimpsed behind the good, the true and the beautiful things of this world, admirable indeed, but insufficient for the human heart. Saint Teresa of Jesus understood this when she wrote: "God alone suffices".
Tragically, above all in nineteenth century Europe, the conviction grew that God is somehow man’s antagonist and an enemy of his freedom. As a result, there was an attempt to obscure the true biblical faith in the God who sent into the world his Son Jesus Christ, so that no one should perish but that all might have eternal life (cf. Jn 3:16).
The author of the Book of Wisdom, faced with a paganism in which God envied or despised humans, puts it clearly: how could God have created all things if he did not love them, he who in his infinite fullness, has need of nothing (cf. Wis 11:24-26)? Why would he have revealed himself to human beings if he did not wish to take care of them?
God is the origin of our being and the foundation and apex of our freedom, not its opponent. How can mortal man build a firm foundation and how can the sinner be reconciled with himself? How can it be that there is public silence with regard to the first and essential reality of human life? How can what is most decisive in life be confined to the purely private sphere or banished to the shadows?
We cannot live in darkness, without seeing the light of the sun. How is it then that God, who is the light of every mind, the power of every will and the magnet of every heart, be denied the right to propose the light that dissipates all darkness?
This is why we need to hear God once again under the skies of Europe; may this holy word not be spoken in vain, and may it not be put at the service of purposes other than its own. It needs to be spoken in a holy way. And we must hear it in this way in ordinary life, in the silence of work, in brotherly love and in the difficulties that years bring on.
Europe must open itself to God, must come to meet him without fear, and work with his grace for that human dignity which was discerned by her best traditions: not only the biblical, at the basis of this order, but also the classical, the medieval and the modern, the matrix from which the great philosophical, literary, cultural and social masterpieces of Europe were born.
This God and this man were concretely and historically manifested in Christ. It is this Christ whom we can find all along the way to Compostela for, at every juncture, there is a cross which welcomes and points the way.

The cross, which is the supreme sign of love brought to its extreme and hence both gift and pardon, must be our guiding star in the night of time.
The cross and love, the cross and light have been synonymous in our history because Christ allowed himself to hang there in order to give us the supreme witness of his love, to invite us to forgiveness and reconciliation, to teach us how to overcome evil with good. So do not fail to learn the lessons of that Christ whom we encounter at the crossroads of our journey and our whole life, in whom God comes forth to meet us as our friend, father and guide. Blessed Cross, shine always upon the lands of Europe!
Allow me here to point out the glory of man, and to indicate the threats to his dignity resulting from the privation of his essential values and richness, and the marginalization and death visited upon the weakest and the poorest. One cannot worship God without taking care of his sons and daughters; and man cannot be served without asking who his Father is and answering the question about him.
The Europe of science and technology, the Europe of civilization and culture, must be at the same time a Europe open to transcendence and fraternity with other continents, and open to the living and true God, starting with the living and true man. This is what the Church wishes to contribute to Europe: to be watchful for God and for man, based on the understanding of both which is offered to us in Jesus Christ.
 
 

Five Anglican bishops plan to join Catholic Church

Rome, Italy, Nov 8, 2010 / 01:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Five Anglican bishops announced their resignations from the Church of England today so that they can enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.
The decision to resign made by Bishops Andrew Burnham, Keith Newton, John Broadhurst, Edwin Barnes and David Silk was welcomed by Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Alan Hopes of Westminster in a message on Nov. 8.
Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams said that he accepted the resignations of Bishops Burnham and Newton with regret. Bishop Broadhurst had been serving as the head of Forward in Faith, a traditional coalition of Anglicans, while Bishops Barnes and Silk are retired bishops.
Bishop Hopes, the point man for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales on forming an Anglican jurisdiction, said that under the guidelines set forth by the Pope in "Anglicanorum Coetibus," the Church will establish an "Ordinariate for England and Wales" for those wishing to enter the Catholic Church.
Benedict XVI released the guidelines for the creation of ordinariates in Nov. 2009, after receiving inquiries from groups of Anglicans who were dismayed at the ordination of women and practicing homosexuals as bishops.

Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi said on Nov. 8, 2010 that the Vatican "can confirm that the constitution of a first Ordinariate is under study, according to the norms established by the Apostolic Constitution ‘Anglicanorum coetibus,’ and that any further decisions regarding this will be communicated at the proper moment.”
He explained that because of their desire to become part of the Catholic Church, the bishops were "obliged by conscience" to step down from their posts within the Church of England.
The bishops themselves released a joint communique noting their discontent at a growing divide between Catholics and Anglicans and their distress at developments in the Anglican Church, which they find "incompatible" with its historic vocation and tradition.
The issue pushing the bishops to make the decision to "cross over" to Rome was the result of a vote during the Anglican General Synod last July. The majority of bishops voted to pass legislation allowing for the ordination of women. This was the breaking point for some of those who held closer to a traditional form of Anglicanism.
The five bishops, who are to step down entirely from their pastoral responsibilities on Dec. 31, 2010, called the Pope's ordinariate measure "both a generous response to various approaches to the Holy See for help and a bold, new ecumenical instrument in the search for the unity of Christians, the unity for which Christ himself prayed before his Passion and Death."
"It is a unity, we believe, which is possible only in Eucharistic communion with the successor of St Peter."
The five prelates invited those who share their perspective to follow them.
Bishop Hopes said the Catholic bishops of England and Wales will be exploring the creation of the first ordinariate during their plenary meetings next week. More information will follow their discussions, he said
 

Baghdad church attack: the day after
Survivor: 'They brought us the real Halloween'

November 1, 2010; Posted: 1655 GMT

Mourners outside the Sayidat al-Nejat Church in Baghdad.(Mohammed Tawfeeq/CNN).
As the sun set over Baghdad, shocked onlookers stood by, watching a truck laden with debris drive away from the Our Lady of Salvation Catholic church.
Silvana Maro stood outside her home near the church, eyes filled with tears, in such shock she could hardly speak. She was a survivor, now plagued by the vivid memory of what she had lived through.
Mass was in process when the attackers stormed in.
“There was gunfire, grenades.  Shrapnel was flying from all sides.  We scattered and threw ourselves to the ground, we didn’t know what would happen to us” She whispered softly, choking on her words.
“They said if anyone lifts their head we will shoot.  My cousin moved slightly.  They shot him, his brains exploded all over”.
Anna Hannow held her aunt’s bloodied purse, the stench of death still fresh.  Her aunt was eighty years old.
“They shot her in the face, there was nothing left of her face” She told us.
As the sun set a coffin was carried in.  A woman sobbed, comforted in vain by another onlooker. Iraqi forces kept the media and bystanders away.
There was a time when Christianity and Islam co-existed peacefully in Iraq, but the Christian community here has not been spared the ravages of the country's sectarian warfare.  Over the years their numbers have dwindled with more choosing to leave every week.
For some staying is the only option.  Others choose to do so out of conviction, refusing to allow violence and threats to drive them from the country they call home.
The attack on Sunday was the first of its kind.  According to the a senior official with the Ministry of Interior, the insurgents first targeted the Baghdad Stock Exchange and blew up two car bombs as a diversion, to draw in the Iraqi unit manning the checkpoints close to the church.
As mass was in full progress – with some 120 worshippers – the attackers, some wearing suicide vests, stormed the building and wreaked carnage. Dozens were killed.
The Islamic state of Iraq, an umbrella organization that includes al Qaeda claimed responsibility. Their demand was the release of prisoners in Iraq and Egypt.  Their statement said the hostage taking was a direct warning to the Egyptian Coptic Church, a response to the case of two Egyptian women allegedly abducted by the Coptic Church after they converted to Islam.
A young man who survived said “They brought us the real Halloween”.
The faces of those we met reflected the extent of the horror their words could not express
Pope Benedict condemned an attack in which 52 people were killed in a Catholic church in Baghdad, saying the violence was all the more ferocious because innocent people were killed in a house of God.
Speaking to pilgrims gathered to hear his prayer in St Peter's Square for the Catholic All Saints' Day holiday, the pope also made a heartfelt appeal for peace in the Middle East.
"I pray for the victims of this senseless violence, made even more ferocious because it struck defenseless people who were gathered in the house of God, which is a house of love and reconciliation," he said.
Fifty-two hostages and police officers were killed when security forces raided a Baghdad church to free more than 100 Iraqi Catholics captured by al Qaeda-linked gunmen.
The gunmen took hostages gathered for Sunday mass at the Our Lady of Salvation Church, one of Baghdad's largest, and demanded the release of al Qaeda prisoners in Iraq and Egypt.
The pope urged the international community to work for comprehensive peace in the Middle East. "May everyone join forces to put an end to violence," he said from his window overlooking the square. Iraq's Christian minority has frequently been targeted by militants, with churches bombed and priests assassinated.
 

Pope, in Letter, Takes On Celibacy Debate
By STACY MEICHTRY

ROME—Pope Benedict XVI said on Monday that the Vatican's recent sexual-abuse crisis might prompt aspiring priests to question the Catholic Church's requirement that clergy be celibate, as he publicly waded for the first time into a debate over whether priestly celibacy is partly to blame for the abuse.
In a letter to seminarians world-wide, the pontiff defended the church's celibacy prerequisite as a way for priests to attain "an authentic, pure and mature humanity."

Eric Vandeville/Abacausa.com

Yet as he addressed the sexual-abuse scandal that has shaken the church over the past year, the pontiff said abusive priests had "disfigured their ministry by sexually abusing children."
"As a result of all this," he continued, "many people, perhaps even some of you, might ask whether it is good to become a priest—whether the choice of celibacy makes any sense as a truly human way of life."
The comments marked the first time Pope Benedict has directly spoken about the church's celibacy policy in the context of the sexual-abuse scandals. As thousands of allegations of children sexually abused by priests have been documented in Ireland over the past year—and other cases reported in Belgium and Germany—Catholic officials in Europe have questioned whether priestly celibacy is partly to blame for the abuse. Some say the two are linked because the celibacy requirement limits the pool of candidates for the priesthood by excluding married men.
Sandro Magister, a longtime Vatican watcher who writes for Italy's L'Espresso magazine, said he couldn't remember Pope Benedict ever mentioning sexual abuse and celibacy in the same breath. With the move, the pope appeared willing to engage in a discussion that previous popes have considered off-limits, he said.
"It's the first time I've seen [the issues] placed together" by the pope, Mr. Magister said, adding that he believes Pope Benedict ultimately aims to "reinforce" the church's celibacy rule by engaging in debate, not to question it.
Since the sexual-abuse crisis exploded in the U.S. a decade ago and resurfaced in Europe this year, the pope has toughened Vatican rules on disciplining abusive priests, met with victims, and accepted the resignation of bishops who covered up abuse. The Vatican, however, has steered clear of any suggestion that the celibacy rule was up for discussion, treating abuse as a separate issue.
In March, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna called on the church to seriously examine potential causes of sexual abuse, including how the church trains new priests. "That includes the issue of celibacy," he wrote in a newsletter. Cardinal Schönborn, a former student of the pope, later clarified that he wasn't placing a question mark over the celibacy requirement.
The debate was rekindled in September when two bishops in Belgium, which has recently been rocked by hundreds of allegations of clerical sexual abuse, questioned whether married men should be excluded from the priesthood.
Pope Benedict has repeatedly described the celibacy requirement as a "gift" from God.
Write to Stacy Meichtry at stacy.meichtry@wsj.com
 

Papal Primacy. Russia Heads the Resistance Against Rome

The patriarchate of Moscow is a great admirer of the current pontiff. But it is also the most hesitant to recognize his authority over the Orthodox Churches of the East. The results of the talks in Vienna
by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 6, 2010 – While the Eastern Churches are slowly approaching the convocation of the pan-Orthodox "Great and Holy Council" that should finally unite them in a single assembly after centuries of incomplete "synodality," the other journey of reconciliation, which sees the East in dialogue with the Church of Rome, is also taking small steps forward.
The object of this dialogue concerns the only real sticking point dividing Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the primacy of the pope.
The latest evidence came a few days ago, in Vienna, where from September 20 to 27 the joint international commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church met as a whole, precisely on the universal role of the bishop of Rome during the first millennium of Christian history.
At the head of the Catholic delegation was the new president of the pontifical council for Christian unity, Swiss archbishop Kurt Koch. While for the Eastern Churches, there was the metropolitan of Pergamon Joannis Zizioulas, a great ecumenist and trusted theologian of the patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, as well as an old friend of Joseph Ratzinger as theologian and pope (see photo Rupprecht/Kathbild).
The Orthodox were fully represented, with the sole exception of the patriarch of Bulgaria. There was the metropolitan archbishop of Cyprus, Chrysostomos II, another champion of ecumenism, whom Benedict XVI met this year during his trip to the island. The patriarch of Moscow had sent to Vienna his most prominent associate, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, also fresh from a meeting with the pope, with whom he has a relationship of great respect.
The presence of the patriarchate of Moscow in Vienna was all the more important because in Ravenna, in 2007, when agreement was reached on the document to serve as the basis for discussion on the universal role of the bishop of Rome, the Russian Church was not there, because of a disagreement with the patriarchate of Constantinople.
The disagreement was smoothed over, and the Ravenna document was also approved by the patriarchate of Moscow, which had helped to prepare it.
The document affirms that "primacy and conciliarity are mutually interdependent." And in paragraph 41, it highlights the points of agreement and disagreement:
"Both sides agree that... that Rome, as the Church that 'presides in love' according to the phrase of St Ignatius of Antioch, occupied the first place in the taxis, and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the protos among the patriarchs. They disagree, however, on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as protos, a matter that was already understood in different ways in the first millennium."
"Protos" is the Greek word that means "first." And "taxis" is the structure of the universal Church.
Since then, the discussion on controversial points has advanced at an accelerated pace. And it has started to examine, above all, how the Churches of East and West interpreted the role of the bishop of Rome during the first millennium, when they were still united.
The outline of the discussion was, until this point, a working document drafted by a joint sub-commission at the beginning of autumn 2008, at a meeting in Crete.
In October of 2009, in Cyprus, the joint international commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, with the Russians present, examined and discussed the first part of this outline, on some historical cases of the universal exercise of the "primacy" of the bishop of Rome, in the first centuries of the Christian era.
The discussion was supposed to continue in Vienna. But there were surprises right from the beginning. The Russian delegation raised objections against the working text provided in Crete, and ultimately succeeded in having it rewritten.
The main objection of the Russian Church is the one summarized by Metropolitan Hilarion shortly after the meeting, in a note published on the website of the patriarchate of Moscow:
"The 'Crete Document' is purely historical and, speaking of the role of the bishop of Rome, it makes almost no mention of bishops of other Local Churches in the first millennium, thus creating a wrong impression of how powers were distributed in the Early Church. Besides, the document is lacking any clear statement that the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome did not extend to the East in the first millennium. It is hoped that these gaps and omissions will be made up in revising the text."
As a result, the Russian delegation asked and obtained that the text from Crete not be included among the official documents of the commission, not bear the signature of any of its members, and be used simply as working material for a new rewriting of the working outline. A rewriting more attentive to the theological dimensions of the question.
In effect, at the end of the talks in Vienna, the participants agreed to set up "a sub-commission to begin consideration of the theological and ecclesiological aspects of primacy in its relation to synodality."
Next year the sub-commission will present the new text to the coordinating committee of the commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. So that the following year, 2012, the commission will be able to revisit and continue – on the basis of the new outline – the discussion begun in Cyprus and Vienna.
The two co-presidents of the commission, Archbishop Koch for the Catholic side and Metropolitan Joannis for the Orthodox, at a press conference on September 24, gave a positive assessment of the talks underway.
Koch recognized the differences between the Catholic and Orthodox visions: while the Catholic Church has strong primacy and weak synodality, for the Orthodox Churches it is the other way around. So it is necessary "that we exchange our respective gifts, as done, for example, by Benedict XVI when he welcomes the Anglicans into the Church with all of their traditions and liturgies."
Joannis said that he agreed: the Orthodox must clarify their conception of primacy, just as the Catholics must strengthen synodality. He observed that the history of the first millennium shows that the Church of Rome was universally recognized as having a special role, but the pope exercised it by consulting with the other bishops.
As for the continuation of the talks, the metropolitan of Pergamon said that a move will be made to "a slight change of our subject, namely to make the historical material focus on theological questions more."
In reality, the journey will not be easy, if one looks at the extremely restrictive views that the patriarchate of Moscow, through the pen of Metropolitan Hilarion, expresses of the pope's role in the first millennium:
"For the Orthodox participants, it is clear that in the first millennium the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome was exercised only in the West, while in the East, the territories were divided between four patriarchs – those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. The bishop of Rome did not exercise any direct jurisdiction in the East in spite of the fact that in some cases Eastern hierarchs appealed to him as arbiter in theological disputes. These appeals were not systematic and can in no way be interpreted in the sense that the bishop of Rome was seen in the East as the supreme authority in the whole universal Church. It is hoped that at the next meetings of the commission, the Catholic side will agree with this position which is confirmed by numerous historical evidence."
In this regard, neither the patriarchate of Moscow nor the Orthodox Church as a whole is forgetting that Benedict XVI, in one of the first actions of his pontificate, removed from the attributes of the pope listed in the Annuario Pontificio the designation "patriarch of the West."
When it became known, this decision prompted protests from many representatives of Eastern Churches. Some saw it as "proof of the claims by the bishop of Rome to universal primacy."
On March 22, 2006, the pontifical council for Christian unity published a statement justifying the change.
On June 8 of that same year, a note from the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople stated that, if anything, the pope would have done better to have stopped calling himself "supreme pontiff of the universal Church," because "the Orthodox have never accepted his jurisdiction over the whole Church."
After that the disputes died down and the two sides began that direct examination of the question which, begun in Ravenna and continued in Cyprus and Vienna, promises further steps forward.
But as can be seen, the question is certainly a thorny one, with no solution in sight.

Pope denounces the 'evil' of the Sicilian mafia
The pope has appealed to young people in Sicily not to be lured by the temptation of the Mafia during a rare visit to the troubled island today.
Published: 6:10PM BST 03 Oct 2010

Pope Benedict XVI denounced the "evil" of Italy's organised crime as he celebrated an open-air mass before tens of thousands of pilgrims in the heartland of the Sicily's Mafia.
Benedict's first visit to the island since becoming pope in 2005 raised hopes among campaigners that he will help their struggle against the ever-pervasive Cosa Nostra.

Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the Holy mass at Foro Italico in Palermo Photo: AFP/GETTY

The pope said faith made humanity possible, even when the people of Palermo and across Sicily faced "a shortage of jobs, uncertainty about the future, moral and physical suffering, and organised crime."
"I am here to give you a strong incentive to not be afraid to testify clearly to human and Christian values, so deeply rooted in faith and in the history of this land and its people," he said.
He called on Sicilians, dogged by Mafia extortion and intimidation, to be "ashamed of evil, which offends God and man" and for the effects of organised crime which "injures the civil and religious community" to be brought into the open.
He paid tribute to a priest slain by the Mafia. Rev. Pino Puglisi stirred consciences with his anti-Mafia preaching in one of Palermo's poorest and most heavily mobster-infested neighbourhoods. Since Rev. Puglisi was gunned down by the Mafia in 1993, his supporters have been clamouring for the Vatican to officially proclaim him a martyr, paving the way toward sainthood.
Organisers said around 250,000 people attended the mass in bright sunshine in Palermo's giant Foro Italico square, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Police had earlier said 30,000 had crammed into the square.
The pope arrived at Palermo's Falcone Borsellino airport, named after two judges killed by the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, in 1992, before travelling through the city in his popemobile.

In Israel, Jewish Christians Are Sprouting
They have been baptized into the Catholic Church, but speak and live like the Jews. They resemble the primitive community of Jerusalem. They are on the rise, but feel overlooked, as in a ghetto
by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 8, 2010 – On the eve of the synod on "The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness," which will be held at the Vatican from October 10-24, it is the very presence of Catholics in those lands that poses problems.
Many of the members of indigenous communities, heirs of the ancient forms of Christianity that flourished there before the arrival of Islam, are fleeing. The ones who remain live here and there in terror, for example in northern Iraq, in Mosul and the surrounding area, where in order to defend themselves they tend to make ghettos in the plain of Nineveh. But elsewhere, many other Catholics come for employment, in great numbers. Especially from Asia and above all to the countries of the Gulf.
For example, in Kuwait alone there are two million immigrant workers, twice the number of Kuwaiti citizens. There are 350,000 Catholics, most of them from the Philippines and India. The flow of these immigrants is so massive, in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, that in Rome they are studying how to redraw the boundaries of the vicariates in that area, dividing into several parts the immense vicariate of Arabia that today combines Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain.
Finally there is the special case of the Catholics in Israel, another situation in complete flux.
First of all, the number of Christians within the borders of Israel has not been falling, but in absolute terms it has risen year after year: from 34,000 in 1949 to 150,000 in 2008, the last official figure.
One can speak only of a slight reduction in percentage terms – from 3 to 2 percent – because in the same span of time the number of Jewish citizens has grown from one million to 5.5 million, thanks to immigration from abroad, and the number of Muslims from 111,000 to 1.2 million. Most of the Christians in Israel live in Galilee, while there are 15,000 of them in Jerusalem.
The exodus of Christians that has set off alarms therefore does not regard Israel, but rather the Holy Land, a geographically flexible term that extends to the Palestinian Territories and parts of the neighboring Arab countries, all the way to Turkey and Cyprus.
The news of greatest interest, within the borders of Israel, concerns the Hebrew-speaking Catholics.
The Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem has a specific vicariate dedicated to them, and entrusted today to Jesuit Fr. David Neuhaus, an Israeli Jew who converted to Christianity.
Until a few years ago, there were just a few hundred Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel. But they are growing steadily, and today number at least seven communities: in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Be'er Sheva, Haifa, Tiberias, Latrun, and Nazareth.
In an interview with the Italian magazine "Il Regno," Fr. Neuhaus explained that these communities have been formed by four contributions.
The first contribution came from the Jews who came to Israel in a series of migratory waves, among whom were Catholics, by birth or by conversion, who became an integral part of Hebrew-speaking Israeli society. The last great migratory wave, after 1990, came from the collapse of the Soviet empire.
The second contribution comes from the arrival of foreign workers in Israel. Today there are about 200,000 of them. They come from Africa, from Latin America, from Eastern Europe, and most of all from Asia. 40,000 have come from the Philippines, most of them Catholic women. Their children, born and baptized in Israel, go to school, learn Hebrew, and assimilate into Israeli society.
The third contribution comes from the 2-3 thousand Lebanese Maronites who moved to Israel after the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, and from the African refugees coming above all from southern Sudan, where there are many Catholics. Their children also grow up speaking Hebrew.
Finally, there are the Palestinian Catholics who have been in Israel since its foundation, with the status of citizenship but in socially disadvantaged conditions. They speak Arabic, and they are based mainly in the villages of Galilee, but they tend to move to the most economically attractive areas. Fr. Neuhaus gives the example of Be'er Sheva, "where hundreds of Arab families have immigrated to work in the businesses around the Bedouin villages, but do not live with the Bedouins because they are of a socially and economically lower class. They send their children to Hebrew-language schools, and so we have a new generation of Palestinian Arabs who speak Arabic only at home, and can no longer read or write it."
All of these – now several thousand and of the most diverse origins – are the Hebrew-speaking Catholics for whom the vicariate is responsible. Its efforts are especially directed toward the children, with the first catechisms ever published in the language of Israel.
Fr. Neuhaus comments: "We work with limited means. In the patriarchate, the Palestinian Christian majority gets more attention, so the Hebrew-speaking Christians are in a certain sense forgotten. But we are also poor in terms of the persons available to help them: we are an extremely small group with too much to do."
In 2003, the Holy See appointed as head of the vicariate of Jerusalem for Hebrew-speaking Catholics a bishop and Benedictine monk of great ability, Jean Baptiste Gourion, Algerian by birth and himself a convert from Judaism.
The appointment was bitterly criticized by the pro-Palestinian circles of the Catholic Church. In the magazine of the New York Jesuits, "America," Fr. Drew Christiansen, the current editor, called it "a campaign to divide the church in the Holy Land."
Unfortunately, Bishop Gurion died shortly afterward, prematurely. And his successors were not made bishops.
Fr. Neuhaus says: "As Hebrew-speaking Catholics, we are a minority twice over, both in the state of Israel and in the Church. Sometimes we have the impression of living in a tiny ghetto."
One glimmer of hope comes from the base text of the synod on the Middle East that is about to begin at the Vatican, where it says that the existence of the vicariate for Hebrew-speaking Catholics is "a great help" in the dialogue with Judaism.
 

 SAUDI ARABIA: Filipinos charged with 'proselytizing' after religious police raid Catholic Mass
Thirteen Filipinos have been charged with proselytising in Saudi Arabia after being arrested during a private Roman Catholic Mass celebrated in a Riyadh hotel last week, a Saudi newspaper said on Wednesday. Wed Oct 6, 2010 10:56pm IST -RIYADH (Reuters)

The Filipinos, one of whom is a Catholic priest, were briefly detained for organising the service raided by the Muslim kingdom's ultra-conservative religious police, Arab News said.
About 150 expatriates attended it, the newspaper said.
"They (the 13) were charged with proselytising," the daily quoted the Philippine Embassy's charge d'affaires in Riyadh as saying. They were later released on bail, the paper added.
Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, applies an austere form of Sunni Islam that confines any form of non-Muslim worship to the privacy of non-Muslim homes. Christians often hold services in hotel conference rooms.
Ibrahim al-Mugaiteb, head of the independent Saudi Human Rights First Society, said the overall situation for Christians had improved since King Abdullah took office in 2005.
"The fact that they were only briefly detained shows a change," he said. Neither Saudi officials nor the embassy were immediately available for comment.
Converting Muslims is a crime in Saudi Arabia punishable by death penalty, although such verdicts have rarely been handed out by Saudi courts, which are controlled by Muslim clerics.
The world's top oil exporter is home to several million expatriates, many of them non-Muslims.
The Catholic Church has urged Riyadh to lift the strict limitations on Christian worship there and allow construction of churches in return for the rights Muslims have in Western countries to build mosques.
Catholic bishops from across the Middle East will hold a two-week synod at the Vatican starting on Sunday to discuss how to help Christian minorities in the majority-Muslim region.

Pope's personal secretary describes the surprises of first five years
Rome, Italy, Sep 27, 2010 / 04:53 am (EWTN News/CNA)

Pope Benedict XVI has "surprised all of us" in the first five years of his pontificate, according to his personal secretary. The Holy Father, he said, is full of the same "vitality" of his John Paul II as he fulfills his "sacred duty" of laying down "tracks" throughout the world that lead to faith.
Personal secretary to Pope Benedict XVI, Msgr. Georg Gänswein, received a Capri San Michele Award over the weekend for a book he released earlier this year that illustrates the travels of the Pope in his first five years.

L'Osservatore Romano printed his words under the title "The Pope of surprises." Msgr. Gänswein first highlighted the beauty of unity in diversity of the different Popes, that "each responds with his own personality and with his own unrepeatable sensitivity" to the call to the See of Peter. Calling the phenomenon "a miracle of newness in continuity," he listed the names of several Popes from the last century, saying that none has been the same as another, yet "all have loved Christ passionately and faithfully served their Church."
But, the Pope's secretary continued, the "truly singular and edifying fact" of this pontificate is that Pope Benedict XVI is the "first devotee" to his predecessor, John Paul II. This, he said, "is an act of great humility, that astonishes and provokes moved admiration."
That the Holy Father reveres Venerable John Paul II in such a way is a "stupendous lesson in pastoral style," said the monsignor, that "whoever begins an ecclesial service ... must not erase the tracks of he who worked previously, but must put his own feet humbly in (his predecessor's) footsteps ..."
If this were always the case, he observed, much Christian heritage that is otherwise destroyed would be saved.
Taking stock, then, of the first five years of the Benedict XVI's pontificate, Msgr. Gänswein said that the Holy Father "has surprised all of us." As a man who "speaks of God," rather than a Pope of "grand images," he said, the Holy Father assumed the role of his predecessor with ease, interpreting it "in a new way and still equally full of vitality."
He has surprised also with his warmth and spontaneous and true simplicity, his courage in not being afraid to engage the difficult themes of today or enter debates, Msgr. Gänswein recalled. "He calls the insufficiencies and errors of the West by name, criticizes that violence that attempts to find a religious justification," while also combating relativism and hedonism and promoting the relationship of faith and reason and between religion and the renouncement of violence," said the monsignor.
Noting the Pope's goal of the "reevangelization" of Europe, he explained that at the base of the Holy Father's words is always the message that God loves man, proved in Jesus' death and resurrection.
All told, commented the monsignor, as the Pope walks the streets of the world and proclaiming God made flesh, he "does not put himself at the center, he doesn't announce himself but Jesus Christ, the only redeemer of the world."
His message is that "(w)hoever lives in peace with God, whoever lets himself be reconciled with Him, finds also peace with himself, with his neighbor and the creation that surrounds him. Faith helps (a person) to live, faith gives joy, faith is a great gift: this is the deepest conviction of Pope Benedict," concluded Msgr. Gänswein.
"For him," he said, "it is a sacred duty to leave tracks that lead to this gift."

Son of Hamas
Autobiography of a Palestinian who discovered that 'love your enemies' is the only way to peace in the Middle East.
Francis Phillips -Thursday, 16 September 2010

By any standards, this is an extraordinary story. Mosab Hassan Yousef is the oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the founders of Hamas; as such, he comes from “one of the most religious Islamic families in the Middle East”, with a high public profile. The autobiography relates how this young Palestinian from such a prominent political background came to work for the Israeli security forces, Shin Bet, and how he finally turned his back on both Islam and politics to become a Christian.

There are some who, on reading this synopsis, will assume that Yousef became a traitor to his own people for money (the Israelis paid him well for the information he gave them); others might think that becoming a Christian was a strategy to escape from an intensely dangerous lifestyle (the author now lives in the US). The answer is both simpler and stranger than this: Yousef, still in his early 30s, manages to retain his love for his fellow Palestinians throughout, though he has completely rejected their terror tactics; he also learnt to respect the Israeli position and the security forces he worked with. What motivated him to work for Shin Bet was a wish to help save lives that might potentially be blown apart (literally; the suicide bombers of Hamas ensured that their deadly baggage would main or kill as many innocent people as possible.)

Yousef dedicates his book “to my beloved father and my wounded family”, at the same time admitting that “I made choices that have made me a traitor in the eyes of the people I love.” He grew up in the West Bank, learning from his father, who was the most important influence in his life, a love of Islam and the Koran and the devout practices associated with his faith. At the same time he witnessed the poverty and rootless lives of the Palestinians, the casual violence and obsessive hatred of Israel. The Palestinians were “not terrorists by nature. They were just people who had run out of hope and options.”

Hamas, in which his father played a central though equivocal role, was born in 1986, out of frustration at the continuing Israeli occupation of what the Palestinians believed were their own legitimate territories. As a young boy, Yousef witnessed his father’s arrest and imprisonment by the Israeli defence forces, which left his mother to struggle on her own with a large young family. In 1996, aged 18, and having already engaged with friends in some low-key rebellious tactics of his own, such as throwing rocks and stones at Israeli soldiers, he was captured by the Israelis, severely beaten up and thrown into prison.

Here the first most significant intervention in his life occurred: he was interrogated by Shin Bet which proposed, given his unrivalled access to the heart of Hamas, that he work for them as a spy. The first official suicide bombing of Israeli citizens had already begun, on April 13, 1994, and Yousef was both mature enough and idealistic enough to want to help halt the escalating death toll. He was also aware that the Palestinian resistance organisations treated each other with the same violence and contempt with which they treated the Israelis; everyone was driven by individual agendas and vendettas; “chaos reigned.”

In contrast Shin Bet, and in particular his link with them, a captain called Loai, struck him as moderate, reasonable and with a valid case of their own: Loai told him during their long conversations that “Israel is a small country and we have to protect ourselves.” In addition, Yousef came to see the fatal divisions among the Palestinians; the religious fervour and theology of jihad of Hamas in conflict with the nationalism, irreligion and cynical power-mongering of the PLO. He has harsh words for Yasser Arafat, dismissing him as corrupt, self-serving and greedy. “Arafat had grown rich “as the international symbol of victimhood. He wasn’t about to surrender that status and take on the responsibility of actually building a functioning society”. Indeed, the author sees him as “an historic catastrophe for his people”.

A deeper element of this book, deeper than the author’s despair at the in-fighting among his own people and his painful realisation that if all the Jewish settlers left the country, the Palestinians would still carry on fighting each other, is his love for his father, a devout Muslim, and his further realisation that Islam itself was fatally flawed. Depicting Islam as a ladder, Yousef analyses it thus: at the bottom are largely secular Muslims who pay lip-service to their faith; halfway up are the ‘moderates’, sincere believers like his father, who deplored violence and wanted to lead peaceable lives; finally, “the highest rung is jihad” – towards which moderates were inexorably pulled.

It put his father in the schizophrenic position of refusing to participate in violence that at the same time he was not willing to condemn. “What he could not justify as right for himself he rationalised as right for others.” Yousef grieves that the “beautiful side of Islam” cannot overcome the “cruel side that required its followers to conquer and enslave the earth.”

A chance encounter with evangelical Christians is the second most significant intervention in his life. The author was encouraged by them to read the Gospels. Although for a long time unable to accept that Jesus is God, Yousef was overwhelmed by what he read: “What a difference between Jesus and Allah! Islam’s god was very judgemental...” The more he read and studied the Bible in his Christian study group, the more the young Palestinian and “son of Hamas” acknowledged “this single truth: loving and forgiving one’s enemies is the only real way to stop the bloodshed.” By 2005, his father had also come to see that Israel was “an immutable reality” and had begun to consider the possibility of a 2-state solution.

Yousef himself recognises that over time he had become addicted to the work he was doing for Shin Bet. However valuable it had been in saving lives from the threat of suicide bombers, it has kept him constantly in danger for his life and the lives of his family members. When he told Loai he was quitting, security staff attempted to dissuade him; then realising his determination they reluctantly let him go. Now in the US, jobless, separated from his family and his people and a practising Christian, he believes his decision was worth it. Though written with the editorial aid of someone called Ron Brackin, this testimony has the ring of truth about it. For its author it has been a harsh but valuable journey.

Francis Phillips writes from Buckinghamshire in the UK. Published in Mercatornet
 

Call to ban homeopath remedies on NHS
Helen Puttick

30 Jun 2010

Homeopathic remedies should be banned on the NHS and taken off pharmacy shelves where they are sold as medicines, doctors said yesterday.
Medics at the British ­Medical Association (BMA) conference voted three to one in favour of axing NHS funding for homeopathic remedies and removing support for the UK’s four homeopathic hospitals – one of which is in Glasgow. They said NHS doctors should not be trained in ­homeopathy and remedies should be taken off shelves labelled medicines and put on shelves “labelled placebos”
.
The Scottish council of the BMA was among those to call for funding to be cut. However, former chairman of BMA Scotland, Dr John Garner, spoke out against this move, saying it would prevent patients who benefited from the practice receiving treatments.

Garner said: “There’s a big push that we practise evidence-based medicine. ­However, patients don’t always have evidence-based symptomology.”
Proposing the motion, Dr Mary McCarthy, a GP from Shropshire, said homeopathy could harm patients by ­diverting them from ­conventional medicine. She countered arguments that it made some people feel better, saying: “Lots of things make you feel better – a sunny day, the smell of the sea, a hug, retail therapy.”
Homeopathy has been ­funded on the NHS since its inception in 1948. It is based on the principle that a ­substance taken in small amounts will cure the same symptoms it causes if it is taken in large amounts.
 

Pakistani Christian Beaten for Refusing to Convert to Islam

 Brothers converted by Muslim cleric who raised them leave him for dead.

Riaz Masih, covering his face for security reasons, says his brothers seek to kill him.

KALLUR KOT, Pakistan, February 22 (CDN) — The four older Muslim brothers of a 26-year-old Christian beat him unconscious here earlier this month because he refused their enticements to convert to Islam, the victim told Compass.
Riaz Masih, whose Christian parents died when he was a boy, said his continual refusal to convert infuriated his siblings and the Muslim cleric who raised them, Moulvi Peer Akram-Ullah. On Feb. 8, he said, his brothers ransacked his house in this Punjab Province town 233 kilometers (145 miles) southwest of Islamabad.
“They threatened that it was the breaking point now, and that I must convert right now or face death,” Masih said. “They said killing an infidel is not a sin, instead it’s righteousness in the sight of Allah almighty.”
Masih begged them to give him a few minutes to consider converting and then tried to escape, but they grabbed him and beat him with bamboo clubs, leaving him for dead, he said.
“They vented their fury and left me, thinking that I was dead, but God Almighty resuscitated me to impart His good news of life,” he said.
Masih told Compass that his brothers and Akram-Ullah have been trying to coerce him to convert to Islam since his brothers converted.
“They had been coercing me to embrace Islam since the time of their recantation of Christianity,” Masih said, “but for the last one month they began to escalate immense pressure on me to convert.”
He grew up with no chance to attend church services because of his siblings’ conversion to Islam, he said, adding that in any event there was no church where he grew up. He knew two Christian families, however, and he said his love for the Christian faith in which he was originally raised grew as he persistently refused to convert to Islam.
He said Akram-Ullah and his brothers offered him 1 million rupees (US$11,790), a spacious residence and a woman of his choice to marry in order to lure him to Islam, but he declined.
The Muslim cleric had converted Masih’s brothers and sisters in like manner, according to human rights organization Rays of Development (ROD), which has provided financial, medical and moral support to Masih. ROD began assisting Masih after a chapter of the Christian Welfare Organization (CWO) brought the injured Christian to ROD.
A spokesman for CWO who requested anonymity told Compass that Akram-Ullah had offered Masih’s brothers and sister a large plot of residential land, as well as 500,000 rupees (US$5,895) each, if they would recite the kalimah, the profession of faith for converting to Islam.
“He never accepted the Islamic cleric’s invitation to Islam, although his newly converted Muslim sister and four elder brothers escalated pressure on him to convert, as well, and live with them as a joint family,” the CWO spokesman said.
Adnan Saeed, an executive member of ROD, told Compass that when Masih’s parents, carpenter George Albert and his wife Stella Albert, passed away, Masih and his siblings were tenants of Akram-Ullah, who cared for them and inculcated them with Islamic ideology.
Saeed said that when they converted, Masih’s now 37-year-old sister, Kathryn Albert, adopted the Islamic name of Aysha Bibi; Masih’s brothers – Alliyas Masih, 35, Yaqoub Masih, 33, Nasir Masih, 31, and Gullfam Masih, 28 – adopted their new Islamic names of Muhammad Alliyas, Abdullah, Nasir Saeed and Gullfam Hassan respectively.
Masih’s family attempted to kill him, Saeed said. A ROD team visited Masih at an undisclosed location and, besides the support they have given him, they are searching for a way to provide him legal assistance as well, Saeed said.
Masih said that because of Islamist hostilities, it would be unsafe for him to go to a police station or even a hospital for treatment. A well-to-do Christian has given shelter to him at an undisclosed location.
In hiding, Masih said that his brothers and Akram-Ullah are still hunting for him.
“Since they have discovered that I was alive and hiding somewhere, they are on the hunt for me,” he said. “And if they found me, they would surely kill me.”
 

Archaeologist sees proof for Bible in ancient wall

by MATTI FRIEDMAN
The Associated Press
Monday, February 22, 2010; 8:07 PM

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era. 
If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.
That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time.
While some Holy Land archaeologists support that version of history - including the archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar - others posit that David's monarchy was largely mythical and that there was no strong government to speak of in that era.
Speaking to reporters at the site Monday, Mazar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called her find "the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel."
"It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction," she said.
Based on what she believes to be the age of the fortifications and their location, she suggested it was built by Solomon, David's son, and mentioned in the Book of Kings. 
The fortifications, including a monumental gatehouse and a 77-yard (70-meter) long section of an ancient wall, are located just outside the present-day walls of Jerusalem's Old City, next to the holy compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. According to the Old Testament, it was Solomon who built the first Jewish Temple on the site.
That temple was destroyed by Babylonians, rebuilt, renovated by King Herod 2,000 years ago and then destroyed again by Roman legions in 70 A.D. The compound now houses two important Islamic buildings, the golden-capped Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Archaeologists have excavated the fortifications in the past, first in the 1860s and most recently in the 1980s. But Mazar claimed her dig was the first complete excavation and the first to turn up strong evidence for the wall's age: a large number of pottery shards, which archaeologists often use to figure out the age of findings.
Aren Maeir, an archaeology professor at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said he has yet to see evidence that the fortifications are as old as Mazar claims. There are remains from the 10th century in Jerusalem, he said, but proof of a strong, centralized kingdom at that time remains "tenuous."
While some see the biblical account of the kingdom of David and Solomon as accurate and others reject it entirely, Maeir said the truth was likely somewhere in the middle.
"There's a kernel of historicity in the story of the kingdom of David," he said.
 

Movie Review - Lourdes
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/movies/17lourdes.html?ref=global-home

Palisades Tartan - Sylvie Testud plays a young woman with multiple sclerosis who goes on a pilgrimage to Lourdes.

February 17, 2010
Mysteries and Hopes Converge on a Shrine
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: February 17, 2010

Moving between heaven and hell, or perhaps just sky and earth, the pilgrims who walk and tremble and are sometimes pushed through “Lourdes” in wheelchairs are usually seen at a remove. One exception is Christine, a young woman with multiple sclerosis who is played by the French actress Sylvie Testud. Tucked into a wheelchair, her limbs immobile and hands tightly curled, Christine looks around her — at the other visitors, the helpful aides, the strange locale — with a gaze that seems at once incurious and beatific.
Situated in southwest France north of the Pyrenees, Lourdes is thought by Roman Catholics to have been where the impoverished 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous saw the Virgin Mary in 1858. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1933 and by Hollywood a decade later when her story was turned into the 1943 kitsch classic “The Song of Bernadette,” with Jennifer Jones. Millions now visit Lourdes annually to attend services and drink from and bathe in the grotto waters, thought to have healing powers. It’s been claimed that the water can cure, though, as the Lourdes Web site, lourdes-france.org, puts it: “For a modern mentality, it is difficult to say that something is ‘inexplicable.’ They can only say that it is ‘unexplained.’ ”
One of the pleasures of this intelligent, rigorously thoughtful, somewhat sly film is that it takes place in the space between the inexplicable (no explanation is possible) and the unexplained (enlightenment might be around the corner). Its director, Jessica Hausner, an Austrian working here in French, wants to explore the mysteries of life, not its certainties. One great mystery, of course, is faith itself, how people come to believe what they do and how those beliefs affect not just their thinking and feelings but also their bodies. For Christine, who speaks most profoundly through the eerie quiet of her nearly inert form — and then later through a possibly miraculous physical transformation — belief is inscribed on the body itself.
The film, which was shot on location in Lourdes — one scene features Cardinal Roger Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles, leading a prayer service — is largely organized around the rituals of pilgrimage. Christine, who’s closely assisted by a young woman (Léa Seydoux) who feeds and helps dress her, is pushed here and there. In one scene Christine visits the grotto, her attendant lifting her curled hand to the stone wall. Another time she visits the baths, where grotto water is poured on her head. In between, she eats and sleeps and has encounters with others (including Bruno Todeschini and a very good Elina Löwensohn). Wherever she goes, a shop selling religious souvenirs can usually be seen in the background.
Contrary to expectation, these repeated images of the souvenir shops don’t function as overt critiques, and there’s nothing in the film as crude as an indictment of the commodification of faith. Ms. Hausner, whose earlier titles include “Lovely Rita,” is more interested in the forms that faith takes, in its individual and collective ebbing and flowing. The mesmerizing opening image — a steadily framed and angled overhead shot of a cafeteria — immediately sets her parameters. As the camera holds on the image, men and women, some in wheelchairs, begin to stream in, as if carried along by some unseen force. They’re merely being seated for a meal, but the elevated angle of the shot and the way everyone drifts in together, as if each were part of a single organism, creates a sense of a collective purpose, a unified calling.
The few religious conversations in the film mostly take place at the edges of the story, among the other pilgrims, including a few women who serve as something of a humble Greek chorus. Together they help make up a convincing world inhabited by believers and skeptics whose ideas are largely voiced in asides and through their actions. In a wonderfully choreographed bit, a member of the Order of Malta, a religious group, tells a joke in which the Virgin Mary is the (mild) punch line. Meanwhile, in the background, Christine is secretly wheeled out the door by her roommate, an older woman with a lopsided mouth, Mme. Hartl (Gilette Barbier), who seems to think that her own fate is tied to the handicapped woman.
What happens to Christine is mystifying, simultaneously (as they say at Lourdes) inexplicable and unexplained. Ms. Testud, a tiny actress with an often oversize and ferocious screen presence, delivers a minutely detailed performance that telegraphs a world with a thrust of her chin, a widening of her eyes. Save for the last astonishing shot of Christine’s face — now a whirlwind of expressive feeling — Ms. Testud keeps her performance generally muted, perhaps to help safeguard Ms. Hausner’s secrets. There is, after all, so much that we can’t and don’t know. As one woman says at the end of the film, during a short discussion of God, we do not know who’s in charge. And then this same woman asks a question that puts her spiritual question into comic relief: what, she wonders, is for dessert? Mysteries, as Ms. Hausner attests, abound.

LOURDES
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Jessica Hausner; director of photography, Martin Gschlacht; edited by Karina Ressler; production designer, Katharina Wöppermann; produced by Mr. Gschlacht, Philippe Bober and Susanne Marian; released by Palisades Tartan. At Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes.
WITH: Sylvie Testud (Christine), Bruno Todeschini (Kuno), Elina Löwensohn (Cécile), Gerhard Liebmann (Pater Nigl), Gilette Barbier (Mme. Hartl), Hubsi Kramer (Herr Olivetti) and Léa Seydoux (Maria).
 

Australia's traditional Anglicans vote to convert to Catholicism
Traditionalist Anglicans in Australia have become the first to vote in favour of leaving their national church and converting to Roman Catholicism.

By Bonnie Malkin, in Sydney and Martin Beckford
Published: 10:00PM GMT 16 Feb 2010

Crossing over to Rome under the new scheme would give the group the chance to retain their Anglican culture without sacrificing their beliefs Photo: REUTERS 

Forward in Faith Australia, part of the Anglo-Catholic group that also has members in Britain and America, is setting up a working party guided by a Catholic bishop to work out how its followers can cross over to Rome.
It is believed to be the first group within the Anglican church to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s unprecedented offer for disaffected members of the Communion to convert en masse while retaining parts of their spiritual heritage.

So far only the Traditional Anglican Communion, which has already broken away from the 70 million-strong Anglican Communion, has declared that its members will become Catholics under the Apostolic Constitution.
The Rt Rev David Robarts OAM, chairman of FIF Australia, said members of the association felt excluded by the Anglican Church in Australia, which had not provided them with a bishop to champion their conservative views on homosexuality and women bishops.
"In Australia we have tried for a quarter of a decade to get some form of episcopal oversight but we have failed," he told The Daily Telegraph.
"We're not really wanted any more, our conscience is not being respected."
Bishop Robarts, 77, said it had become clear that Anglicans who did not believe in same-sex partnerships or allowing women to be ordained as bishops had no place in the "broader Anglican spectrum".
"We're not shifting the furniture, we're simply saying that we have been faithful Anglicans upholding what Anglicans have always believed and we're not wanting to change anything, but we have been marginalised by people who want to introduce innovations.
"We need to have bishops that believe what we believe."
Crossing over to Rome under the new scheme would give the group the chance to retain their Anglican culture without sacrificing their beliefs, he said.
On Feb 13th the group unanimously voted to investigate setting up an Ordinariate - an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church - in Australia.
It has formed a working group with a Catholic bishop, Bishop Peter Elliott, along with the breakaway TAC and the national church, ACA, to “set in train the processes necessary for establishing an Australian Ordinariate”.
Under the terms of the Vatican’s offer made last October, Anglicans who are disillusioned with the church’s liberal direction will be allowed to enter into full communion with the Holy See. But they may be able to continue using their old prayer books and church services, and will come under the pastoral care of a new bishop called an Ordinary.
Forward in Faith Australia, which is based in Melbourne, has up to 200 members, but not all are expected to convert. The group said it was committed to providing “care and support” for anyone who felt unable to be received into the Ordinariate.
Bishop Robarts said his group was the first FiF branch to "embrace" the Pope's offer so strongly. Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England have welcomed the opportunity but are waiting to see whether they will be given significant concessions on the introduction of women bishops – such as a “men-only” diocese – before deciding whether to cross the Tiber.
The Anglican Church of Australia ordained its first women priests in 1992 but so far its governing body, the General Synod, has failed to approve legislation needed to introduce women bishops.
"It's the first step on the road, saying thank you, we are going to go along this particular track because the door has been closed to us by the Anglican Church of Australia over a long period of time,” said the bishop.
"I love my Anglican heritage, but I'm not going to lose it by taking this step."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7249374/Australias-traditional-Anglicans-vote-to-convert-to-Catholicism.html
TelegraphNews
 

Why British children are sad
And why 'happiness classes' in schools won't help them cheer up.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/why_british_children_are_sad/

Children in England are feeling increasingly miserable, according to a recent survey. A third of young people said they were not happy with life, and one in 20 pupils at secondary schools admitted to having been drunk “two or three times” in the past month.
Should this surprise us? Not really. An increasing number of young people have to endure the misery of parental divorce, or the break-up of unmarried relationship. Many have to cope with the complications of what is coyly called a “merged family” with step-brothers and step-sisters in what may turn out to be yet another temporary arrangement. They are expected to manage the relationships involved in having step-grandparents and an assortment of step-uncles and aunts, some of whom may also be in various sorts of relationships with partners.
Since school discipline is acknowledged to be a problem – evident in a rising number of incidents of attacks on teachers, routine necessary searches for knives, a massive problem of swearing and rowdiness in classrooms – it is scarcely surprising that for many children an ordinary school day presents much that will induce fear and unhappiness. The consumer-culture also produces an array of nasty habits: envy, greed, the nonsense of the “must-have” jeans or trainers, the sneering or bullying involved when a child is deemed to be dressed unfashionably. Obesity presents a further problem: children who instead of family meals are presented with endless opportunities to grab snacks and given money for fast-food to be eaten on the way home from school, and/or in front of the TV at home.

A new book also notes that lack of structure and discipline in children’s lives induces misery. The Spoilt Generation: why restoring authority will make our children and society happier by Aric Sigman points out that children desperately need authority figures, boundaries and discipline and order, parents who are in control. It is cruel to deny children these things, which are essential to mental and emotional health and wellbeing.
If one single cause of misery could be brought out as heading a list, it would be the denial of a child’s right to a father. Cruel policies in divorce courts block fathers from seeing their children: a mother is deemed to have the right to force her children to live with her and her new boyfriend while a father becomes a marginal figure whose visits can be blocked or made extremely difficult by moving to a distant place.

Divorce can also bring other effects: conscious that their children are likely to be unhappy when a home breaks up, parents tend to try to compensate by soft-pedalling on discipline, allowing bad behaviour which really requires correction.
There are other ways of inducing heartache in children, too: over-indulgence and giving them a sense of entitlement to instant gratification makes them angry with themselves and with others, discontented, unable to manage small everyday challenges. Failure to punish bad behaviour means that they are confused and life seems to lack structure and purpose.
And the fashionable emphasis on “genderless parenting” mean that a simple truth has been ignored: children need both mothers and fathers, who relate to them in different ways. A family should not have to be politically-correct, and nor should its means of communication or discipline have to follow fashion. Families need to have a confidence in being what they are, and parents should be allowed and encouraged to make use of their best instincts and their common sense.
None of this seems to have reached Ggovernment circles of thought. Do politicians and bureaucrats live on a different planet from the rest of us? Britain’s “Children’s Minister” announced, in response to the recent survey, that the new system of “happiness” classes at school and compulsory “personal, social, health and economic education” would resolve the problems, along with promotion of healthy eating habits.
It makes one despair. A child needs a secure home, and the knowledge that there is a moral code and a meaning to life. You cannot teach “happiness” in a classroom, and it is bizarre that a government is attempting to do so. Structure and discipline should form a framework in which a child can flourish, a sort of secure flower-pot in which the young plant thrives before it is put out into the larger flower-bed to bloom in the garden.
The angry, frightening young men and women who shriek and vomit and lurch about drunkenly in the streets of Britain’s towns and suburbs on summer nights are evidence that we are getting something terribly wrong. It is very weird when a nation is afraid of its own young.
It is possible to change, and to start making the right decisions and restoring wisdom and truth to the task of child-rearing. If we don’t, the future looks bleak.
Joanna Bogle writes from London.
 

Polish priests are having a devil of a time as demand for exorcists rises
Date: 13 February 2010
By Matthew Day in Warsaw
http://news.scotsman.com/world/Polish-priests-are-having-a.6069658.jp

THE number of priests in Poland willing to do battle with Satan and rid people of evil spirits has soared as a result of growing public demand for exorcisms, say Catholic Church figures.
As Polish exorcists gathered yesterday for their annual conference, few failed to notice the swollen ranks of clergy.

In the early 1990s, there were just three exorcists for the whole country. Now there are more than 100, and each year the number
gets higher. In Europe, Poland now trails only Italy in the number of its registered exorcists.

"There are so many of us because the problem (of possession] is growing," Father Andrzej Grefkowicz told a press conference that shed a rare light on a practice which remains a mystery to many.
"This isn't funny," he added. "Anybody who has come into contact with somebody who is possessed, or enslaved, knows that this is not a joke."
Despite the spread of secular thought in Poland, according to the Polish Catholic Church, each year the number of people in "torment or enslaved by an evil spirit" increases.
"In Poland, there is a growing human awareness that different types of depression and anxiety can have a spiritual cause. There wouldn't be so many of us, if this wasn't the case," said Fr Grefkowicz by way of explanation.
Another reason cited by priests for the rise in exorcists is increasing public awareness of their role, and more people looking for explanations and cures to behaviour that conventional science struggles to deliver. But despite the age-old struggle between faith and science, trained exorcists refer people to psychologists if they feel the person suffers from a clinical, rather than spiritual problem.
"So how do we recognise if someone is possessed?" said Fr Grefkowicz. "A person may hear voices, and it may be a medical problem, but experience allows us to conclude it is a possession. Exorcists are looking for reasons."
Other ways of discovering if somebody has an evil spirit in them appear more direct.
"In Italy, there is a good way," said Fr Antony Zielinski. "You have three white envelopes, two of which contain cards, while the third has a holy image. A person possessed will behave abnormally in contact with the envelope holding the holy picture."
Aware that talk of cards and evil spirits may invoke a negative reaction from the cynical, and that many people's knowledge of exorcism is based on Hollywood horror films, Poland's exorcists are cautiously trying to demystify their work.
"We really need to shed light on the whole subject," said Dr Alexander Posacki, a Jesuit theologian and exorcism expert.
"There are a lot of unnecessary myths surrounding it, but exorcism is based on the cast-iron rules of the Church," he added. "Everything is consistent with its tradition and its teachings."
In an effort to undermine the dramatic movie image of priests locked in tumultuous battles with evil spirits, Fr Grefkowicz said most exorcisms are more sedate affairs, rather than dramatic scenarios.
"Our work is based mainly on prayers and psalms, and that is how I cast out an evil spirit," he said
 

Why Pope John Paul II Whipped Himself
New book reopens questions on self-denial and "what is lacking in Christ's afflictions."
Collin Hansen | posted 2/08/2010 09:11AM

Pope John Paul II projected a warm, grandfatherly image to the adoring public who flocked en masse to hear his homilies or watched on TV from home as he traversed the globe. So there was no small shock when a recent book revealed that the pope, who died in 2005, whipped himself with a belt and sometimes lay prostrate all night on the floor.

The pope apparently did not want aides to investigate his sleeping habits, going so far as to make his bed appear used by tossing around the sheets. Yet Monsignor Slawomir Oder, who is presenting John Paul II's case for canonization, detailed the behavior in an Italian-language book, Why He's a Saint: The Real John Paul II According to the Postulator of His Beatification Cause. Oder explains that the pope believed these acts of penance would affirm God's primacy and help him seek perfection. While self-inflicted physical suffering is unusual among Catholics, other notables have pursued holiness in this manner. Mother Teresa wore a cilice, a strap secured around the thigh that inflicts pain with inward-pointing spikes. Catholics are quick to point out, however, that these practices bear little resemblance to the bloody, masochistic flogging so graphically portrayed in the movie based on Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.

So how do Catholics explain self-flagellation, a practice so foreign to Protestants, let alone non-Christians? Several writers have defended the late pope. Writing for the National Catholic Register, Jimmy Akin faults a "pleasure-obsessed culture" for portraying the pope's behavior as repulsive.

"Self-mortification teaches humility by making us recognize that there are things more important than our own pleasure," Akin writes. "It teaches compassion by giving us a window into the sufferings of others—who don't have a choice in whether they're suffering. And it strengthens self-control. As well as (here's the big one I've saved for last) encouraging us to follow the example of Our Lord, who made the central act of the Christian religion one of self-denial and (in his case) literal mortification to bring salvation to all mankind."

Indeed, the pope believed suffering brought him closer to Christ, according to Oder. For precedent, the pope appealed to Colossians 1:24, where the apostle Paul writes, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church." With no parallel in the New Testament, this verse has vexed biblical commentators for centuries. Surveying the Old Testament apocalyptic literature, Peter O'Brien understands "what is lacking" to mean that God has appointed a measure of suffering before the end comes. Paul's suffering on behalf of the Colossians, whom he never even met, helped to fill that gap. The suffering he endured for the sake of the gospel in his apostolic ministry united him with other Christians and even Christ himself, who suffered untold anguish on the Cross.

Yet for all the hardship he bore (2 Cor. 11:16-32), Paul did not harm himself in pursuit of this union. Suffering found him, and he even pleaded unsuccessfully with God to relent (2 Cor. 12:7-10). God allowed this suffering in order that he might demonstrate his power in Paul's weakness. Whether we seek suffering or not, aging does the same by inflicting hardship on nearly all of us. Does our theology prepare us to endure? As John Paul II aged, Parkinson's disease visibly ravaged his once-vigorous body. He even considered resigning, something no modern pope has done, even though Catholic bishops usually retire at age 75. Politics Daily columnist David Gibson points out that the agonizing end to John Paul II's life deserves more attention than his private suffering.

"In the end, all of the revelations about flagellation and such may be more of an unfortunate distraction from the testimony of the pope's final years, when he struggled against a growing paralysis but continued to write and travel and appear in public and show the zest for life he always had—a kind of self-mortification that was also a powerful public witness for those who were similarly aged or infirm."

Still, we should understand the late pontiff's self-flagellation as part of a more comprehensive Catholic theology. According to Chris Castaldo, author of Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic, John Paul II's views can be found in a 2002 homily he preached about St. Pio of Pietrelcina, a Capuchin priest famous for his self-flagellation. Today you can still visit Pietrelcina and see gory traces of his self-affliction. Honoring this saint, John Paul II quoted Galatians 6:14: "But may I never boast except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ." According to the pope, Pio showed the redemption of Christ by conforming to the Cross.

"Is it not, precisely, the 'glory of the Cross' that shines above all in Padre Pio?" Pope John Paul II asked. "How timely is the spirituality of the Cross lived by the humble Capuchin of Pietrelcina. Our time needs to rediscover the value of the Cross in order to open the heart to hope. Throughout his life, he always sought greater conformity with the Crucified, since he was very conscious of having been called to collaborate in a special way in the work of redemption. His holiness cannot be understood without this constant reference to the Cross."

Protestants recoil at mention of collaborating in the work of redemption, because believers have been sanctified by the once-for-all offering of Jesus Christ on the Cross (Heb. 10:10). But perhaps we may still resonate with the spiritual benefits of self-denial. Though we reject self-flagellation as a misguided effort to relate to Christ, we may pursue other disciplines prescribed by Scripture to express our need for God. Maybe the best example is fasting, a common Old Testament practice assumed by Jesus as a means of connecting with God (Matt. 6:16-18). But just as our age scoffs at self-flagellation, so also many skeptics consign fasting to the over-zealous.

"Christians in a gluttonous, denial-less, self-indulgent society may struggle to accept and to begin the practice of fasting," Don Whitney writes in Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. "Few disciplines go so radically against the flesh and the mainstream culture as this one. But we cannot overlook its biblical significance. Of course, some people, for medical reasons, cannot fast. But most of us dare not overlook fasting's benefits in the disciplined pursuit of a Christlike life."

Do you want to strengthen your prayer life? Discern God's leading? Find an outlet to express your grief to God? Confess your utter dependence on God? Whipping is not necessary, but self-denial is a vital means of Christian growth. As Jesus prepared for his earthly ministry, he fasted. His example compels us to do the same.

Collin Hansen is a CT editor at large and co-author of the forthcoming book, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories That Stretch and Stir (Zondervan).
 

Haiti: The Untold Story

"There shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in places: Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows." (Matthew 24: 7,8)

Haiti, formerly known as the Pearl of the Antilles, was once a prosperous French colony where the Catholic Faith predominated. But in August, 1791, Haiti was dedicated to the devil by island rebels and has since been plagued with hurricanes, floods, and civil unrest, with Haiti today being the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
This sharply contrasts its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, which has kept the Faith and has enjoyed an abundance of peace and prosperity over the years.
It is a well documented and historical fact that a group of Voodoo priests (houngans) led by a priestess named Dutty Boukman made a pact with the Devil in Haiti on August 14, 1791. The place was Bois Caiman. All present vowed to exterminate all the white Frenchmen on the island. They offered a black pig in sacrifice in which hundreds of slaves drank the pig blood. In this ritual, Boukman implored the devil to get the French occupation out of Haiti, and in exchange they offered their country to Satan with a vow to serve him.

The event at Bois Caiman marked the beginning of the Haitian revolution which culminated on January 1, 1804, when the nation of Haiti was born and a new demonic tyranny began.
Today over three quarters of Haiti's population practices Voodoo, a curse that was greatly augmented when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide officially sanctioned Voodoo as a national religion on April 8, 2003. Voodoo priests are now permitted to perform marriages and other ceremonies previously reserved only for Christian religions. "An ancestral religion, Voodoo is an essential part of national identity," Aristide said in his decree recognizing Voodoo.
What is worse is the way that Aristide went out of his way to promote the practice of Voodoo in his country. On the day the government recognized the cult, he paid all the radio stations in Haiti to play nothing but Voodoo music all day long. He even flew in 400 Voodoo priests from West Africa to help spur the event on.
According to Reverend Doug Anderson who served as a missionary in Haiti until 1990, "Haiti is the only country in the entire world that has dedicated its government to Satan. Demonic spirits have been consulted for political decisions, and have shaped the country's history." Haitian leaders make no attempt to hide their allegiance to Satan. According to media commentator Tom Barrett, "Haiti's government is a government of the devil, by the devil, and for the devil."
Is it any wonder that Haiti was struck by a killer earthquake on January 12th? Have we forgotten how often the Israelites in the Bible were punished and delivered into slavery when they would depart from the God of their fathers and sacrifice in their groves?
Two hundred years ago the houngans in Haiti called upon the god of Voodoo to direct their country and for the past two hundred years the devil has been driving a whip to their back and holding them in chains of envy. The vulture spirituality produced by the cult was clearly evidenced by the hoards of people looting in the streets while the earth was yet shaking on January 12.
The earthquake in Haiti is a wake-up call for the people to return to their knees and honor the God of Columbus who first brought the Christian Faith to that country. But it is also a lesson as to what will happen anywhere on earth where decadence and degeneracy become a way of life. We saw it in Southeast Asia (tsunami disaster) where children were being forced into the sex industry against their will. We saw it in New Orleans (Katrina) where 135,000 gays and lesbians were scheduled to parade in the streets just two days before the killer hurricane hit.
Shall we play the ostrich and pretend that the killer quake in Haiti was just an accident?
This was a clear and direct message from God to the people of Haiti and the world. The Republic of Haiti was punished for adopting satanic cruelty (Voodoo) as a way of life for its people. But the mercy of God was also extended in taking many of these innocent souls before the devil might have a chance to claim them for himself.
But this mercy too is for the survivors of the quake. God broke Haiti's legs as it were, but in the same move he broke the shackles of sin that they may come out of bondage and walk at liberty as Christians as they were called to do in the beginning. We might see the Haitian quake as a potential exodus from 200 + years of satanic oppression.
Let us pray that Haiti will heed this sign from on high to put away its witchcraft and embrace more fully the laws of God that they may be the peaceful and prosperous nation  they were called to be in the beginning.
David Martin jmj4today@att.net

Reference: St. Petersburg Times, Media Research, Wikipedia, Conservative Truth, Pat Robertson
 

As killers hunted her, Rwandan woman hid in cramped bathroom with Rosary for 91 days

It was beyond a horror movie. It is in the realm of martyrdom. It was during one of history's most brutal genocides.
For 91 harrowing days in 1994, a twenty-two-year-old Catholic student named Immaculée Ilibagiza of the Tutsi people in Rwanda, Africa, hid in the bathroom of a minister's house with seven other adults to escape all but certain death. Hutus were in the midst of a reign of terror that, before it was over, depending on the estimate, would record 800,000 to a million Tutsis -- Immaculée's people -- murdered (in one to three months).
It was a secret bathroom that even some of the minister's family didn't know about: three by four feet and so small that Immaculée and the others -- for those three months -- had to take turns standing.
The alternative was death by machete.
Indeed, Immaculée lost her parents, two brothers, her grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, friends, and classmates in the "war."
For endless, nail-biting days, she and the others listened in stark terror as killers searched her village for remaining Tutsis and even entered the house in which they were hiding, missing them by God's grace.
Day in and day out, light or dark, just outside the window -- at times, just feet beyond the thin walls that shielded them -- were the sounds of murder.
And every day -- perhaps every hour -- the women wondered how they would meet their end; one of them begged the minister, who was a Hutu, but had hidden them out of Christian kindness, to throw dirt on her corpse if they were next so the dogs -- which were consuming the strewn corpses -- would not tear into hers.
It was so terrifying that often while the women hid their mouths dried and there was no saliva to swallow -- terrifying but for prayer: Immaculée recited 27 rosaries and forty Divine-Mercy chaplets a day -- praying every waking moment.
It was how she survived. It was how they all survived -- physically and emotionally.
"I felt like my head was laying on the lap of the Blessed Mother all day," she recounted to us recently.
"There was no eating. I prayed from the morning until eleven at night.
"Every day, every second, I had to think of the Blessed Mother. And at night, I would dream of Jesus. Although all day I was praying to Mary, at night I always dreamt of Jesus, and He told me, 'Don't fear again.'"
Adds her blog:
"Immaculée credits her salvage mostly to prayer and to a set of rosary beads given to her by her devout Catholic father prior to going into hiding. Anger and resentment about her situation were literally eating her alive and destroying her faith, but rather than succumbing to the rage that she felt, Immaculée instead turned to prayer. She began to pray the Rosary as a way of drowning out the negativity that was building up inside her. Immaculée found solace and peace in prayer and began to pray from the time she opened her eyes in the morning to the time she closed her eyes at night. Through prayer, she eventually found it possible, and in fact imperative, to forgive her tormentors and her family's murderers."
At one point, said Immaculée, a Hutu killer put his hand on the bathroom door but, miraculously, didn't open it.
Afterward, a cabinet was placed in front to obscure the door as Immaculée maintained her incredible ordeal, eating beans with insects in them. The young Rwandan woman dwindled from a healthy 115 pounds to a skeleton of 65 pounds, nourished mainly by that rosary her father, a convert to Catholicism, had given her.
By the end of this modern holocaust -- which largely took place outside world view -- three-quarters of Tutsis would be killed, including nine hundred of 2,500 fellow students. So numerous were the corpses that, as was the case with her father's body, they were stacked by Hutu warriors for roadblocks -- or simply heaved into the Kagera River, where they all but clogged this waterway that empties into Lake Victoria.
The New York Times headline was "Blood in the River" while Time's cover story quoted a missionary as saying, "There are no devils left in hell. They are all in Rwanda."
And indeed that was exactly what Immaculée and the others heard, the sounds of evil as neighbor killed neighbor, the Hutus hunting down every Tutsi they could find -- at one point calling out Immaculée's name as they searched the house!
The Hutus never found the women -- who with the help of the minister eventually escaped to a refugee camp (established by the French Foreign Legion).
Her story is now famous. She has met world leaders like President George Bush (who read her book and sent her a personal letter). She has been honored with an award given legendary people like Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama, and has received honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Saint John's University. She wrote a bestselling book called Left To Tell. President Barack Obama was photographed holding the book. Her account has been told on 60 Minutes.
The story is remarkable enough right there, but then, more remarkably, is the mystical aspect.
For the genocide had been prophesied years before by the same Blessed Mother when she appeared in Rwanda during apparitions that began at Kibeho in 1981 and have been fully approved by the Roman Catholic Church -- apparitions that Immaculée now dedicates herself to publicizing.
It was during those apparitions, as we have previously reported, that Mary warned about materialism, irreverence, and sexual immorality that would bring desolation (soon to be realized as AIDS swept this region).
There were initially twelve visionaries, then nine studied by the Church, three officially approved in 2001, when a declaration was issued in Rome. During an apparition preceding the holocaust, one of the seers saw what was later described as "a river of blood, people who were killing each other, abandoned corpses with no one to bury them" -- precisely what soon transpired and was noted in the headline.
Those revelations are what Immaculée now chronicles, at speaking engagements and in another bestseller called Our Lady of Kibeho. Her main message: Christian forgiveness (after the ordeal, she even kissed one of the killers who murdered two members of her family).
During the holocaust, two of the seers died. A third later succumbed to illness. Only three are officially recognized -- but achieved that status in a pastoral letter issued by the local bishop during a visit to the Vatican in June of 2001.
Ironically, says Immaculée, the bishop said he was most impressed with a pagan boy named Emmanuel Segatashya who was not one of the approved seers but had converted so deeply that he spoke with the wisdom of one who had spent decades immersed in Catholic teaching. "I spoke with the bishop, and he said they will be going back to all the visionaries, but anyone who had an apparition of Jesus, they did not want for now to go there," explains Immaculée. "They approved of Mary but not Jesus."
Perhaps it was also because Segatashya, in addition to claiming an encounter with Jesus, spoke of the "end" of the world.
"I never conceived the world could end until I saw the genocide," reflects Immaculée. "To have seen a million die in three months, to see people leaving, with nothing from their pasts, was incredible."
The warning of Kibeho, she feels, is for the whole world, and also has been transmitted from sites like Medjugorje, which  Immaculée has visited and firmly supports. "I think it is the Lord going to the ends of the world," says the African woman, who now lives in New York and has worked at the United Nations. "So many souls are searching for God. We will see chastisements. We will have trouble because of our sins."
But like her we have the Rosary.
Like her, we have the Divine Mercy chaplet.
And with prayer we too can escape the cramped quarters of hiding no matter what storm or holocaust or genocide (or quaking of the ground) rises around us.
 

Lawsuit calls yoga chain a cult

By Kyra Phillips and David Fitzpatrick, CNN
January 7, 2010 -- Updated 2320 GMT (0720 HKT)

A full investigation into the allegations against the Dahn Yoga centers on tonight's Campbell Brown, 8 ET on CNN.

Cottonwood, Arizona (CNN) -- The cheering was raucous and the applause thunderous for a man who makes few public appearances.
As he made his way gingerly across a gravel park, where he had just dedicated a nearly 40-foot statue representing the "Soul of the Earth," a voice shouted out: "I love you, Ilchi Lee."
Lee, a South Korean businessman, is the founder of a national chain of yoga and wellness centers called Dahn Yoga. The company teaches that its physical exercises "can restore the vibrations of the body and brain to their original, healthy frequencies," according to a video introduction on its Web site.
But Dahn Yoga is now defending itself from allegations by former employees that it is "a totalistic, high-demand cult group" that demands large sums of money from its followers and enshrines Lee as an "absolute spiritual and temporal leader."
A lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Arizona, says that recruits "are unknowingly subjected to an intensive program of psychological manipulation, indoctrination and various techniques of coercive thought reform designed to induce them to become Ilchi Lee's disciples and devote themselves to serving him and his 'vision.' "

Jade Harrelson, one of more than two dozen plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said Dahn leaders "prey upon people like me who are ignorant about the way money works."
The company denies the allegations and calls the plaintiffs "disgruntled former employees."
"In our 30-year history, we have helped millions of people lead healthier and happier lives," corporate spokesman Joseph Alexander told CNN.
Dahn Yoga set up its first shop in the United States in 1991, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It now has 127 storefront centers in the United States, more than 1,000 worldwide, and Forbes magazine estimates the company's 2009 profits at $34 million.
Dahn Yoga teaches that what it calls brain wave vibration can ease some of the debilitating symptoms of illnesses such as diabetes and arthritis. Its publicity materials feature praise for Lee from a variety of sources, including Oscar Arias, Costa Rica's president and a Nobel Peace Prize winner; and Broadway producer/choreographer Tommy Tune. In addition, Elkhonon Goldberg, a clinical professor of neurology at New York University's medical school, praises the work of the International Brain Education Association, a group Lee founded.
"IBREA is in a unique position to disseminate knowledge and to serve as a very effective platform for numerous worthwhile projects," Goldberg is quoted on the Dahn Web site as saying. "Ilchi Lee should be applauded for his pioneering creative vision in conceiving and launching this innovative organization with a truly international outreach."
Goldberg did not respond to requests for comment from CNN.
Harrelson and other former employees say Dahn Yoga instructors coerced them into taking out student loans, then transferring the funds to the company. Payments began in small amounts, she said, then progressively increased as fees for training and courses became more expensive. Harrelson said she eventually paid about $40,000 to Dahn.
Alexander said no one was ever coerced into giving money to Dahn Yoga. The former employees "have misinterpreted natural business cycles, natural business goals, as some type of undue pressure," he said.
 "We make no excuses and no apology for the fact that we are a business," Alexander said. The plaintiffs, he said, "are after one thing -- they are after money."
And Dahn Yoga attorney Alan Kaplan added, "Let's make it clear. My client, Mr. Lee, is not a cult leader. Dahn Yoga is not a cult."
But Ryan Kent, the lawyer who filed suit on behalf of Harrelson and 26 other former employees in May, said Dahn Yoga leaders indoctrinate followers, then "take advantage of you and take all your money."
Harrelson also said Lee singled her out for special attention and eventually sexually assaulted her while she was living and working in Seoul, South Korea.
She said she trusted Lee and saw him as a father figure, eventually following him to Seoul -- where, she says, he assaulted her one night in 2007 at his apartment.
"In my mind, there was no possible way I could have physically or verbally resisted him," Harrelson told CNN. "To say no to him was to say no to his soul. I became numb, and so what happened, happened not at my consent."
Harrelson said she never filed a police report. The first time she publicly made the allegation was when she and other former employees filed suit in early 2009.
Dahn Yoga's U.S. operations are now based near Sedona, Arizona, about 20 miles from Cottonwood -- where Lee appeared in December to dedicate the 39-foot statue of "Mago." The name is Korean for "Soul of the Earth," the mother figure in a seventh-century creation legend Lee cites as his inspiration.
It was a rare appearance for Lee, who is seldom seen in public and routinely travels with a retinue of bodyguards.
CNN requested an on-camera interview with Lee through his representatives, but was turned down. When approached at a dedication ceremony in this small Arizona town, he was surrounded by bodyguards, one of whom said the Dahn Yoga founder needed a translator to understand the questions.
When a CNN photographer who speaks Korean translated, Lee said it was the first time he had heard of the sex assault allegation. Then his bodyguards forced the camera lens to point toward the ground, and Lee continued to the ribbon-cutting.
Later, his attorney said any claims of sexual assault were not true, and "We are confident we will get those claims dismissed in court."
Harrelson, who goes by "Jade," and college friend Liza Miller also say they were strongly urged to undergo extreme physical training at Dahn Yoga's retreat center in Sedona -- training they say left both women at the brink of exhaustion.
One of the exercises, known as "bow training," involved deep knee bends to the floor to a prone position and back up again, with hands raised high over their heads. Miller, who has joined the lawsuit, says once she had to do 3,000 of the exercises -- "Which took about 10 hours, and we didn't eat or drink during that time."
"People were screaming, people were throwing up, people were running away," Miller said. "People were rolling around, moaning, crying, wailing -- there was a lot of emotional distress. We were taught that because of this bow training, we were cleaning what was blocking us, to connect to our soul."
Dahn Yoga calls Miller's description of the exercise inaccurate.
"These are meditation practices," Alexander said. "They are common throughout Asia, especially in Korea. Generally, people do a smaller number of bows, and they build up to more. I know of no one who does 3,000 bows on a regular basis."
And Dahn Yoga instructor Genia Sullivan told CNN, "The practices that we practice are very helpful."
"They empower people to really use everything they have to become the best person they can be, and I've benefited greatly from it," Sullivan said.
Other Dahn employees sent CNN e-mails supportive of the organization and its leader while this report was being prepared. All praised Lee, with one woman saying she had given her life to him and to the organization. The writers all condemned their former colleagues who have gone to court, and they deny the company is a cult.
By all accounts, Dahn Yoga is a booming business. Lee is revered by most of its adherents. But some former employees who say they once loved the organization are now saying far different things.
"The problem was way at the top, at the very, very top, things are completely dishonest," Miller said. "And that information trickled down so that everyone is believing one thing, which is a total lie."
 

Anti-Christian attacks in Iraq part of brutal strategy, says archbishop

Rome, Italy, Nov 30, 2009 / 03:52 am (CNA).- Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa of Mosul said last week that last Thursdya’s anti-Christian attacks in Iraq which destroyed a church and damaged a convent “show that there is a strategy to erase our cultural heritage and more than 2000 years of history” on the part of Muslim extremists.
In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the archbishop said these Islamic groups “want to destabilize the atmosphere of trust in our country. We must oppose this atmosphere of hatred with strength and with prayer,” he added.
The strategy of these groups “is clear,” the archbishop continued.  “As soon as the situation becomes calm and it appears there is a chance Christians can return to their homes in their cities, the terror and violence reappear with greater threats.”
“This is the not the first time extremist groups lashed out at the symbols of the Christian community in Iraq. And it is not the first time that priests and religious have paid with their blood,” he explained.
After recalling the March 2008 assassination of his predecessor Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, Archbishop Casmoussa said, “It seems like nobody is able to guarantee the safety of Iraqi Christians.”
“The only path to take to placate violence is dialogue,” the archbishop continued.  “Only then will we be able to isolate these extremist groups and become a tolerant country.  Now we must seek to be close to our small community and give ourselves strength and encouragement.”
 

Mosul: Christian buildings attacked, Church of Saint Ephrem levelled
11/26/2009 14:15
IRAQ - AsiaNews Agency

At present, there is no information about casualties. Attackers carried out their action in broad daylight without any opposition. The methods used are like those used in the attack against the Bishop’s Palace in 2004. Christian sources say the “attack was like a Mafia warning”, a message to Christians “to leave the city.” The faithful are left with anger, disappointment and fear.
 Mosul (AsiaNews) – Explosive devices were detonated this morning at two Christian sites in Mosul, the Church of Saint Ephrem and the Mother House of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine. At present, there are no reports about casualties but the church was entirely destroyed. The convent also suffered damages but it is not known how much. Christian sources in Mosul told AsiaNews that the “attack was like a Mafia warning”, a message to Christians “to get out of the city.” 
At around 10 am, a commando of about ten gunmen stormed the Church of Saint Ephrem in the al-Jadida neighbourhood, in a new section of the city. Attackers told everyone inside to leave and then calmly proceeded to place explosives around the building. When they were set off the whole structure was levelled. The same thing happened to the Bishop’s Palace in December 2004.
According to early reports, no one among the faithful was hurt in the blast.
After the first operation, the attackers moved to the Mother House of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine, where a second explosion was heard around 10.30 am. For the moment, there are no details about the damages inflicted on the building or any casualties among the nuns.
Sources in Mosul told AsiaNews that the attacks were the work “of a group of about ten people who acted calmly.”
The area is under the control of Sunni Arabs and had not seen any major act of violence until now.
“We received threats and episodes of intimidation but nothing major,” a Christian source said.
This morning’s attacks resemble “the series of attacks that hit Mosul’s Christian community in the past.”
Local sources suggest that Kurds might be involved in the action in order to get Christians out of the area and into the “Nineveh Plain.”
“There is a lot of fear among the people because those who carried out the attack acted unimpeded and without opposition,” the anonymous source said.
In fact, it is more than just fear. A sense of “anger and disillusionment against the local and national governments is growing. It is the latest attack and latest disillusionment for Christians who feel abandoned.”  (DS)

Masked Gunman Kills Russian Priest At Moscow Church

By REUTERS
Published: November 20, 2009

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A masked gunman entered a church and murdered a Russian Orthodox priest who had received death threats for converting Muslims to Christianity and criticizing Islam, prosecutors and church officials said Friday.
The killing could threaten delicate relations between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country's growing Muslim minority of about 20 million.
The gunman approached priest Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in St Thomas Church in southern Moscow Thursday night, checked his name and then opened fire with a pistol, a spokesman for the investigating committee of the Prosecutor-General's office said.
"The main theory is that religious motives are behind the crime," spokesman Anatoly Bagmet said.
Sysoyev died on the way to hospital. His choirmaster was injured in the attack, Bagmet said, and is in hospital under armed guard.
Sysoyev was from Tatarstan, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia on the Volga river. He was threatened after preaching to Muslims and Christians from other denominations.
"I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims)," Sysoyev stated on a television program in February 2008, according to Interfax. "As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims."

Russia is home to Europe's largest Muslim community and Islam is the country's second-biggest faith, something which Sysoyev criticized.
"Islam is far from being a religion in the way we understand it," he said in one of his video lectures posted on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJNPSyh4zFk&feature=related).
"Islam can be rather compared with projects like National Socialism or the Communist party seeking to create God's kingdom on Earth using humanly instruments," he added.
He also wrote books including "An Orthodox Response to Islam" and "Marrying a Muslim," in which he advised Russian women against taking a Muslim partner.
Russia has seen a religious revival after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dominant Orthodox Church has become an important political force. Its leader, Patriarch Kirill, is frequently seen in public with Russian and foreign leaders.
But Orthodox bishops have complained that rival Christian denominations are seeking to make converts on its territory and Islam is spreading fast among a sprawling community of migrants from predominantly Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.
The Russian Patriarch's press service refused to comment on the murder but some of Sysoyev's Orthodox colleagues referred to Muslim attacks on him prior to the killing.
"Father Daniil ... has been periodically receiving e-mails which said he will be treated as 'infidel' if he did not stop polemics with Muslims," Kiril Frolov, the head of the Orthodox Experts Association, told Interfax news agency.
Russia's Chief Mufti Ravil Gainuddin expressed his condolences to the Orthodox Church and to Sysoyev's family. He cautioned against assigning blame prematurely or speculating about the motives for the killing.
"We want to say that we oppose any expressions of terrorism and extremism," he told reporters. "Islam denounces terror and the murder of an imam, an orthodox priest, is an awful sin..."
Sysoyev also preached against small religious groupings such as Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses, viewed as "totalitarian sects" by the Orthodox Church.
(Additional reporting by Aydar Buribayev; editing by Michael Stott and Janet Lawrence)

Vatican Researcher Finds Writings On The Shroud of Turin

November 21st, 2009 - 7:13 pm ICT by GD -
By Ranjan Bhaduri,
Nov. 21, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Vatican scholar, Barbara Frale, has come up with the information that the ‘Shroud of Turin‘, debated as the burial cloth of Jesus, has several writings on it that could prove its viability. According to Frale, the text includes the words “(J)esu(s) Nazarene” which translates into Greek as Jesus of Nazareth. The claim has been made in her book, La Sindone di Gesu nazareno or ‘The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth’.
The discovery was made by Frale with the help of the computer analysis of the shroud’s photos which are not accessible very frequently. Frale further believes that the words were written on a document so as to identify the body (Jesus’s), but the ink seeped into the shroud.
The piece of cloth bears the images of a man who has been crucified, and its validity as the cloth used to cover Jesus during his burial, has been debated for ages. The experts dismiss Frale’s claims saying that the shroud has been concluded to be a medieval forgery established through carbon-dating. To this, Frale said, that during the medieval times, no one except a heretic could have omitted to use these particular words of divinity, and even a forger “would have had all the reasons to put up the words on the object”. She also says that the shroud could have been seen as a hoax if the words ‘Christ’ or ‘Son of God’, were found instead of ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. Gian Marco Rinaldi, an expert on the matter, said that the signs are brought out by computer enhancements and that the letters are a figment of imagination.
 
 

Death certificate is imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican scholar

Wednesday, 25 Nov 2009
A Vatican scholar claims to have deciphered the "death certificate" imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, or Holy Shroud, a linen cloth revered by Christians and held by many to bear the image of the crucified Jesus.
By Richard Owen

Dr Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican secret archives, said "I think I have managed to read the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth." She said that she had reconstructed it from fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing imprinted on the cloth together with the image of the crucified man.
The shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral and is to be put in display next spring, is regarded by many scholars as a medieval forgery. A 1988 carbon dating of a fragment of the cloth dated it to the Middle Ages.

However Dr Frale, who is to publish her findings in a new book, La Sindone di Gesu Nazareno (The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth) said that the inscription provided "historical date consistent with the Gospels account". The letters, barely visible to the naked eye, were first spotted during an examination of the shroud in 1978, and others have since come to light.
Some scholars have suggested that the writing is from a reliquary attached to the cloth in medieval times. But Dr Frale said that the text could not have been written by a medieval Christian because it did not refer to Jesus as Christ but as "the Nazarene". This would have been "heretical" in the Middle Ages since it defined Jesus as "only a man" rather than the Son of God.
Like the image of the man himself the letters are in reverse and only make sense in negative photographs. Dr Frale told La Repubblica that under Jewish burial practices current at the time of Christ in a Roman colony such as Palestine, a body buried after a death sentence could only be returned to the family after a year in a common grave.
A death certificate was therefore glued to the burial shroud to identify it for later retrieval, and was usually stuck to the cloth around the face. This had apparently been done in the case of Jesus even though he was buried not in a common grave but in the tomb offered by Joseph of Arimathea.
Dr Frale said that many of the letters were missing, with Jesus for example referred to as "(I)esou(s) Nnazarennos" and only the "iber" of "Tiberiou" surviving. Her reconstruction, however, suggested that the certificate read: "In the year 16 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius Jesus the Nazarene, taken down in the early evening after having been condemned to death by a Roman judge because he was found guilty by a Hebrew authority, is hereby sent for burial with the obligation of being consigned to his family only after one full year". It ends "signed by" but the signature has not survived.
Dr Frale said that the use of three languages was consistent with the polyglot nature of a community of Greek-speaking Jews in a Roman colony. Best known for her studies of the Knights Templar, who she claims at one stage preserved the shroud, she said what she had deciphered was "the death sentence on a man called Jesus the Nazarene. If that man was also Christ the Son of God it is beyond my job to establish. I did not set out to demonstrate the truth of faith. I am a Catholic, but all my teachers have been atheists or agnostics, and the only believer among them was a Jew. I forced myself to work on this as I would have done on any other archaeological find."
The Catholic Church has never either endorsed the Turin Shroud or rejected it as inauthentic. Pope John Paul II arranged for public showings in 1998 and 2000, saying: "The Shroud is an image of God's love as well as of human sin. The imprint left by the tortured body of the Crucified One, which attests to the tremendous human capacity for causing pain and death to one's fellow man, stands as an icon of the suffering of the innocent in every age." Pope Benedict XVI is to pray before the Shroud when it is put on show again next Spring in Turin.

Big anti-abortion rally in Spain

Pro-life protesters turned out in numbers

More than a million people are said to have taken part in a march in Madrid to oppose government plans to liberalise Spain's abortion law.

Several dozen centre-right opposition party joined the demonstration, which was backed by Roman Catholic bishops. Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero wants to introduce abortion on demand. At present, a pregnancy can only be terminated in mainly Catholic Spain under specific circumstances. The government wants the procedure to be available to all women up until the 14th week of pregnancy.
Most controversially, the draft law currently before parliament would also permit girls aged 16 and 17 to have an abortion without their parents' knowledge. It is the latest in a series of ethical issues which have pitted the Catholic right against the government, which has legalised gay marriage and made divorce easier.

Police estimates put the crowd at 250,000, but the regional government said that over a million had turned out, with the organisers claiming a turnout of two million. 'Every life matters'
The march brought together more than 40 religious and civil society groups calling for the government to withdraw the draft bill.
The march drew together more than 40 religious and other groups

"This new law is a barbarity," said one protester, Jose Carlos Felicidad, from the southern town of Algeciras.
"In this country, they protect animals more than human beings," he told AFP news agency.
A broad cross-section of Spanish society were represented, says the BBC's Steve Kingstone in Madrid - old and young, parents with babies, priests, nuns, immigrant families and organised groups coached in from all over the country.
They gathered in the heart of Madrid under an enormous blue banner the height of a two-storey building emblazoned with the simple message: "Every life matters."
The crowd stretched all the way up the city's main avenue in what our correspondent says was a show of strength by Spain's traditional Catholic right.
The demonstrators would have been hoping that lawmakers at the parliament nearby were listening, our correspondent adds, because it is they who in due course will vote on this controversial legislation.

Respect and rights?
Spain's existing law, dating from 1985, allows abortion in cases of rape and when there are signs of foetal abnormality.
Spanish women can also end a pregnancy if their physical or psychological health is at risk. In practice, the last category has been used to justify the vast majority of abortions - of which there were 112,000 in 2007.
The government says the new law is about respect and rights for women, and that anyone wanting to terminate a pregnancy will first be explained the alternatives - including state help for young mothers.
It also claims its proposal will make abortion safer - by ensuring the procedure does not happen beyond 22 weeks of a pregnancy.
In recent years shocking cases have emerged in which doctors performed abortions on women eight months pregnant, with the justification that their mental health was under threat.

Charismatics for generations

There is a little known story about Fr. Angelo Roncalli (future Pope John XXIII) in Patti Gallagher’s book “As by a New Pentecost”:

While he was still Bishop Angelo Roncalli, Pope John XXIII used to visit a tiny Czechoslovakian village of approximately three hundred people where a dear friend of mine, Mrs. AnnaMariea Schmidt, was living. For many centuries all the Catholics in this village had experienced the full spectrum of charismatic gifts as recorded in 1 Corinthians 12-14. It was part of normal Christian life for them . . . Pentecost was a daily reality.

AnnaMariea related to me the circumstances surrounding the first manifestation of charismatic gifts in the eleventh century. When the villagers were in danger of starvation due to the severe cold which ruined their crops, they prayed for God’s help. A beautiful lady, who did not identify herself, appeared on the mountain and taught them how to implore the Holy Spirit. As they followed her instructions, they were all filled with the Spirit and received charismatic gifts, such as discernment of spirits, prophecy and the gift of tongues. They also experienced a growth in the sanctifying gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially love. The bread which they baked that winter was blessed, and their supply lasted miraculously until the next harvest.

Each successive generation of villagers manifested the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They did not realize that their charismatic experience was unique, since their village was fairly isolated. AnnaMariea describes how the power of prayer and the presence of God’s love were so strong that they needed no jails or hospitals. When someone was sick, the entire village united in prayer, expecting God’s healing. Children were welcomed into families; there was no divorce. Peace and love reigned. Sunday Mass was a glorious celebration of Jesus in their midst and was followed by a sharing of food and fellowship. Scripture was read in the homes and children were instructed to live in the power of the Holy Spirit.

It was into this charismatic environment that Bishop Roncalli came for visits in the 1930s. He was joyfully received as a spiritual father. AnnaMariea, who was a child at the time, remembers him as a priest imbued with God’s love. She delighted to sit at his feet and listen to him speak about Jesus. He seemed perfectly at home amidst the manifestations of the charismatic gifts as he prayed with her family and the other villagers.

When I asked AnnaMariea if she thought that Pope John XXIII’s prayer for a new Pentecost was inspired by his visits to her village, she said that she thought it would be presumptuous to draw such a conclusion. AnnaMariea believes that this desire for a new Pentecost was born in his heart long before he visited them. It seemed to her as though he knew full well what was possible when people turned to God with repentant, humble hearts and implored the Holy Spirit to act in their midst.

AnnaMariea’s description of Bishop Angelo Roncalli is confirmed by many other people. Certainly, Pope John XXIII is widely regarded as one of the most charismatic figures of the twentieth century. He has been called by Cardinal Suenens, “a man completely docile to the Holy Spirit, a man who, completely free from himself, followed the path of the Holy Spirit.”

It was prophesied in the 1930s that a severe testing would come upon AnnaMariea’s village to empty it, but that there would be joy as the villagers stood firm through the trial. This prophecy was fulfilled when Nazi troops came in 1938 and killed almost every villager. The power of the Holy Spirit sustained them, and not one person renounced his faith. I am grateful to God for sparing the life of Mrs. AnnaMariea Schmidt, who survived both Nazi and Russian concentration camps, and who has allowed me to share this portion of her amazing testimony.

Webmaster's note: After some queries I find out the name of this village; Ležáky. This village was entirely destroyed after the war, and the name was removed from all maps, as the Communists wanted to take away even the memory of this God-filled place. It was near another village where the population was also massacred, Lidice; but the people there were all communists, and this village has now become a place preserved in their memory. Click here to know more.  VideoMapPhotos
 

Abortion Clinic Director Converts During "40 Days"

National Campaign Claims 542 Lives Saved

Abby Johnson, left, the former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas
(Bluefish Photography/Coalition for Life)

By Genevieve Pollock

BRYAN, Texas, NOV. 3, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood center, left the organization after watching a baby being aborted, and is now working with those who prayed for her conversion.

Johnson, 29, worked for Planned Parenthood for eight years until she watched, by an ultrasound transmission, a fetus "crumple" as it was vacuumed from its mother last September.
On Oct. 6, she quit her job as the Bryan center director. She walked across the street to the Coalition for Life, a pro-life group that was at that time joined with cities across the nation in a 40 Days for Life campaign.
David Bereit, national director of 40 Days for Life, told ZENIT that in the latest campaign, which ended Sunday, seven other abortion workers quit their jobs, and 542 lives were saved.
And "these are just the ones we know of," he added, summing up the immediate results from the campaign that united 212 cities across 45 states, five Canadian provinces and Denmark.
The 40 Days program actually began at the Bryan clinic in 2004, as a grass-roots prayer and fasting initiative. Pro-life workers have gathered in front of this Planned Parenthood center for six campaigns to date, keeping a prayer vigil around the clock for those considering and advocating abortions.
Bereit stated: "From that first campaign in 2004, we've prayed for Abby -- and for all abortion workers -- that they would come to see what abortion really is, and that they would leave the deadly business.
"In this case, those prayers have been answered. We are so proud of Abby's courage to leave the abortion industry and publicly announce her reasons for leaving."
He noted that this conversion story "demonstrates the importance of a constant, peaceful prayer presence in front of abortion facilities."

Breaking point

Johnson, who is now appearing on radio and television shows around the country, explained that she had a "change of heart on this issue," 40 Days for Life reported.
She stated, "Over the past few months I had seen a change in motivation regarding the financial impact of abortions and really reached my breaking point after witnessing a particular kind of abortion on an ultrasound."
"I just thought, I can't do this anymore; and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it," she told KBTX.com.
Johnson, an Episcopalian, described this moment as a "definite conversion" of heart, a "spiritual conversion." Johnson also reported that although she originally got involved with Planned Parenthood because she wanted to help women, she had been having second thoughts because the center was changing its business model. "The money wasn't in prevention," she said, "the money was in abortion."
Johnson told FoxNews.com that she was actually instructed by her regional managers to increase the number of abortions performed to drive up profits. "Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money -- we've got to keep these abortions coming,'" She said. "It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers."
Although Johnson's former place of employment only performed abortions on two days each month, every day the doctor was in, he could do up to 40 of these.
Now Johnson is helping women, but from the other side of the street. She began praying with volunteers outside Planned Parenthood, for those who were once her coworkers.

Power of prayer

Coalition for Life's director, Shawn Carney, affirmed: "It's truly been a testament to the power of prayer and the courage of Abby to leave a job she felt she could no longer do in good conscience.
"It has been a joy for all of our volunteers who have prayed outside of the clinic for the conversion of the clinic workers to witness that conversion actually happen."
Though Johnson has not yet found another job, she has been working closely with Carney and other members at the coalition.
Bereit explained to ZENIT, "Pro-life people are welcoming these former abortion workers with love and open arms."
He pointed to his organization's Web site, which has posted on its blog hundreds of notes from people worldwide who are expressing support for Abby.
Bereit stated that even one conversion will have far-reaching results. This will "certainly encourage other cities to conduct multiple 40 Days for Life campaigns, as well as to develop a regular prayer presence" even while the program is not going on, he said.
Bereit continued, "We are committed to press on until that day when no more women cry and no more children die."
He told ZENIT that two more campaigns are being planned for 2010, one during Lent, beginning Feb. 17, and another in the fall, Sept. 22-Oct. 31.
"In addition," Bereit said, "40 Days for Life is actively developing tools, training, and resources to educate, equip, and empower local pro-lifers to grow and expand the impact of their efforts."

To read more;
Hundreds of babies saved from abortion in recent pro-life campaign
Planned Parenthood's abortion quotas exposed

Bangalore: Miscreants Vandalise Catholic Church - Mob Protests
by Amarnath Dinesh Roy - Bangalore

Bangalore, Sep 10: Over 10 window glasses and two statues were destroyed at St. francis de Sales church in Hebbagudi on Hosur road, about 20 kms from Bangalore, on the night of september 09th.  In incident came to light when Fr. Selvaraj, the assistant parish priest of the  church woke up on 10th morning to turn off the compound lights.

He said "The vandals broke and toppled down the statues of John the disciple and another image of Mary" These statues were part of the Calvary scene.  Youth at the venue who were found shouting slogans against the government and against the police pointed to a site where there were ahses. "The misreants must have attempted to set fire to portions of the church" they said.

Speaking to SAR NEWS Fr Selvaraj Assistant Parish Priest said” we did not have a watchman but a boy was staying in the watchman quarters. They had locked the room of that boy and had indulged in this vandalism. Though the church has a burglar siren, it functions only when the doors are broken and entered-in. They had only broken the window panes but had not entered inside the church”.
Fr.Selvaraj further added that “Since we have mass in the evening today, it was only when we came for a visit in the morning at about six we realized the damage.

Father Aloysius Parish Priest of St.Francis de sales church estimated the loss over two lakhs.
The Francis de sales Church belongs to Members of the Society of Francis de Sales (MSFS). The campus comprises a hospital, formation house, PUC and Degree colleges, besides the church. The School and college were closed. The students and parishioners  from neighbouring parishes blocked the Hosur Highway and staged a protest demanding justice and a probe. Police assured them of immediate action and protection.

Father Francis C, Finance officer of the archdiocese and Father Adolf Washington, Public Relations Officer of the Archdiocese visited the spot to take stock of the damage and loss. They interacted with the Police officials and Local BJP MLA Narayanswamy.  It may be recalled that this attack comes exactly after a year from the churches in Bangalore and Mangalore were attacked.  Fr. Francis while pacifying the agitated crowds told  media persons "We do not want to comment without knowing the fact of the matter.  We will definitely want an inquiry into the reason behind this attack.  None of us want any disruption of peace, be it the hindu, muslim or christian community"

The Archbishop who was away for the Karnataka Bishops Council Meeting was unable for comment. Answering queries from media persons, Fr. Adolf Washington, PRO of the archdiocese said "This is not a time to speculate and make blatant accusations against anybody.  We have an incident of vandalism at hand and none of us are in the know of who could behind this.  We can hardly suspect anyone given the fact that this church has always enjoyed a peaceful fellowship. We must allow the law to take its course.  We have asked the police to register a case of vandalism and a case of disruption of communal harmony." It is our hope that the Government and the police machinery will take congnisance of this incident and bring the culprits to book."     When asked if he saw any internal problem in the Church that sparked off this act of vandalism, he said "if this was an internal church conflict, no christian in his right senses would destroy a sacred image or cause physical destrution to the church".  "There has to be an outside hand" he said.

Superintendent of Police Dr. Mahesh,  Police Officer Shankarappa from Anekal Police Limits, area BJP MLA Narayanswamy and panchayat officials visited the spot to pacify the agitated crowd.
 

Fr Pat Collins CM summarizes the conclusions of a recent report on Reiki brought out by the American bishops

Over the years a number of people have asked me what I think about Reiki. To tell the truth, more often than not, I have had to admit that I do not know much about the subject, but that it sounds a bit like a New Age form of healing to me. Recently, I was delighted to find that, in March 2009, the doctrinal committee of the American hierarchy, consisting of eight archbishops and bishops, had published a lucid and helpful document entitled Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy.

It begins by echoing the teaching of Sirach 38:1-15, when it says there are two kinds of healing, natural and divine. On the one hand, we can be healed by human means such as surgery, psychotherapy and medicine, while on the other hand God can heal us by means of such things as the anointing of the sick and the charism of healing. In this connection the bishops refer to the Instruction on Prayers for Healing which was published by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2000, and to par. 1508 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The bishops point out that charity demands that we should not neglect natural means of healing people because even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses.

The Origins of Reiki

A Zen Buddhist monk, Mikao Usui, discovered Reiki in the mid nineteenth century in Japan. At the end of a 21-day meditation on Mount Kurama he achieved a spiritual awakening and received the knowledge of Reiki, i.e., how to attune to the universal lifeforce or energy. According to Reiki, sickness is ultimately due to an imbalance of the universal life force in the human body. So a Reiki practitioner brings about healing by placing his or her hands in certain key positions on the patient’s body in order to facilitate the flow of Reiki or universal energy. Rather than being the ultimate source of this healing energy, the healer is merely a channel for something that exists everywhere and in everything, including the healer. To become a practitioner of Reiki healing a person must receive an “initiation,” or “attunement” from a Reiki master, i.e. someone who has reached a high level of attunement as a result of completing an advanced stage of training.

Is Reiki a Natural Means of Healing? When one reads books and articles on Reiki it becomes clear that its beliefs are mainly expressed in spiritual and religious terms of a pantheistic kind. Such literature is filled with references to God, the Goddess, the “divine healing power,” and the “divine mind.” The life force is described as being directed by the “Higher intelligence,” or the “divine consciousness.” Furthermore Reiki healers make use of Japanese sacred symbols and engage in religious type ceremonies. Reiki is often referred to as a way of living governed by five ethical precepts. As the bishops point out, in some respects Reiki is similar to a religion.

That said, many practitioners such as nurses, use Reiki as a purely natural form of healing. However, there is no empirical evidence to show that this form of alternative medicine has any good effects. In fact it lacks credibility in so far as the universal life energy that Reiki talks about is unknown to modern science. As the bishops observe, the justification for this form of therapy must necessarily come from something other than science.

Reiki and the Healing Power of Christ

As I know from personal experience, some modern day Christians such as priests, nuns and charismatics, try to harmonise Reiki with Christian healing. To do so they have to accept, at least in an implicit way, the central tenets of the worldview that underpins Reiki healing. Many of these tenets are incompatible with Christian thinking. This is so, for instance, because Christians see divine healing as a free gift of God’s grace, which is not within human control, whereas Reiki practitioners believe, in a Pelagian way, that healing can be reliably experienced as a result of human insight and effort. The American document points out, “the fact remains that for Christians access to divine healing is by prayer to Christ as Lord and Saviour, while the essence of Reiki is not prayer but a technique that is passed down from the ‘Reiki Master’ to the pupil, a technique that once mastered will reliably produce the anticipated results.” Apparently, some practitioners of Reiki, who are influenced by New Age thinking, consult with angelic beingsIt e r c e and spirit guides when they are ministering healing to others. The American bishops point out that this practice can open a channel to sinister demonic influences. They observe, “This introduces the further danger of exposure to malevolent forces or powers.” This point may explain why I have heard quite a number of people say that, having received Reiki healing, they developed all kinds of problems ranging from depression to headaches and physical ailments. Indeed, a man who had been a Reiki master rang me up one day to say that he had heard me warning about the dangers of this form of therapy in one of my recorded talks. He told me that he had come to see the truth of my words from his own personal experience and that of his clients. I was pleasantly surprised when he revealed that he was giving up Reiki because he had discovered that it sometimes had a very dark side.

While some practitioners attempt to Christianise Reiki, in a syncretistic way, by adding a prayer to Christ and using Christian symbols, the American bishops point out that these cosmetic changes do not alter the essentially pagan nature of this form of therapy. For these reasons, Reiki cannot be identified with what Christians call healing by divine grace.

“Reiki is operating in the realm of superstition, the no man’s land that is neither faith nor science”

The bishops conclude by observing that “for a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems.” They say that a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki ends up “operating in the realm of superstition, the noman’s land that is neither faith nor science.” The bishops warn that superstition corrupts the person’s worship of God by turning religious feeling and practice in a false direction. They explain that while “sometimes people fall into superstition through ignorance, it is the responsibility of all who teach in the name of the Church, to eliminate such ignorance as much as possible.” That was the main reason why I wrote this short article.

The document ends with these salutary words, “Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health facilities and retreat centres, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or provide support for Reiki therapy.”

Fr Pat Collins CM is a prolific writer and a respected retreat leader. He is based in Dublin, Ireland.

US Bishops Declare Reiki Therapy Unchristian
Denounce Its Use in Catholic Institutions

WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 1, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Reiki, a Japanese alternative medicine, lacks scientific credibility and is outside Christian faith, making it unacceptable for Catholic health care institutions, the U.S. bishops' conference stated.

On Saturday, the conference issued the "Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy," developed by their committee on doctrine, headed by Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and approved by the administrative committee Friday.
The document notes that "the Church recognizes two kinds of healing: healing by divine grace and healing that utilizes the powers of nature," which "are not mutually exclusive."
Reiki, however, "finds no support either in the findings of natural science or in Christian belief," it explained.
The guidelines note that this technique of healing "was invented in Japan in the late 1800s by Mikao Usui, who was studying Buddhist texts."
The report continues: "According to Reiki teaching, illness is caused by some kind of disruption or imbalance in one's 'life energy.' A Reiki practitioner effects healing by placing his or her hands in certain positions on the patient's body in order to facilitate the flow of Reiki, the 'universal life energy,' from the Reiki practitioner to the patient."

Spiritual healing
It further explains that the therapy has several aspects of a religion, being "described as a 'spiritual' kind of healing," with its own ethical precepts or "way of life."
Reiki "has not been accepted by the scientific and medical communities as an effective therapy," noted the guidelines. "Reputable scientific studies attesting to the efficacy of Reiki are lacking, as is a plausible scientific explanation as to how it could possibly be efficacious."
Nor can faith be the basis of this therapy, the bishops affirmed, as Reiki is different than the "divine healing known by Christians."
They explained, "The radical difference can be immediately seen in the fact that for the Reiki practitioner the healing power is at human disposal." For Christians, they said, "access to divine healing is by prayer to Christ as Lord and Savior," while Reiki is a technique passed from "master" to pupil, a method that will "reliably produce the anticipated results."

Insoluble problems
The guidelines state: "For a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems. In terms of caring for one's physical health or the physical health of others, to employ a technique that has no scientific support -- or even plausibility -- is generally not prudent."
On a spiritual level, the document states, "there are important dangers." It explains: "To use Reiki one would have to accept at least in an implicit way central elements of the worldview that undergirds Reiki theory, elements that belong neither to Christian faith nor to natural science.
"Without justification either from Christian faith or natural science, however, a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition, the no-man's-land that is neither faith nor science.
"Superstition corrupts one's worship of God by turning one's religious feeling and practice in a false direction. While sometimes people fall into superstition through ignorance, it is the responsibility of all who teach in the name of the Church to eliminate such ignorance as much as possible."

The document concludes, "Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health care facilities and retreat centers, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or to provide support for Reiki therapy."

Messenger of Saint Anthony
Interview - God & I: John Pridmore

He was a serious East End 'face' who carried a machete and tear gas in his exquisitely tailored jackets until, after almost killing a man, something extraordinary happened...
Mario Conte, OFM Conv.

IN YOUR BOOK, From Gangland to Promised Land, you mentioned that you had a very happy childhood. How then did your fall into crime begin?
The big change came when I was 10. I came home one night and my parents told me that I had to choose who I wanted to live with because they were getting divorced. My parents were the two people I loved most in the world, and I just couldn't choose. So I think I made an unconscious decision that I wouldn't love anyone anymore because if I didn't love I wouldn't be hurt. My mom ended up having nervous breakdowns and then going to mental hospitals, whereas my dad remarried.
My step-mom felt that one of the ways to bring up a child was with a lot of violence; she was very strict. So it was all very hard for me. My father was a policeman, and one of the ways I began to see policemen was as vengeful people, against whom it was right to commit petty crimes. I wanted attention and tried to capture it in all the wrong ways - by being bad. At 13 I was caught by the police, and charged with a few different offences, and at 15 I was in detention.
My only qualification was stealing, and because I didn't love anyone, and because I certainly wouldn't let anyone love me, I began taking pain-killers, drugs, anything to take away the pain of not having God in your life. At 19 I was in prison again, and then there was a net change in me. I began to lash out in anger, so I was put into 23 hours of solitary confinement. That was really tough for me because I began to turn that anger against myself, but God must have been there even though I didn't know it because I didn't kill myself. However, when I came out, I was as angry and bitter as ever. I said to myself, When you're out, you have to take, because no one gives you anything in this world. So I became a bouncer round the clubs of the West and East Ends of London. I there met people who seemed to have everything: money, power, the best girls, drugs. Every time I walked into the place everyone knew who I was and had respect for me, and I thought that this respect would fill the emptiness in my heart. However, before long I was no longer working for these people, but with them. These people were running most of the organised crime in London, so to my shame I became involved in the major drug deals and protection rackets. I got to the point that I was carrying a machete in one pocket of my jacket and knuckle-dusters and CS spray in the other. There is no glory in being paid to hurt people, I'm saying this only to glorify what God can do in someone's life.
With that lifestyle, I slowly obtained everything, showy cars, money, women, etc., but inside I was still empty, and to kill my conscience which was telling me that this was wrong, I was on crack-cocaine, dope and heavy drinks, anything to blot out that inner voice.

Your life is extraordinary in the sense that you are a former drug-pusher and gangster turned Christian. Can you describe in greater detail the events that led to your conversion?
I was working in a club in the West End, and I ended up punching a man with my knuckle-dusters. I thought I had killed him. The only reason I hit him was because there was one of the underworlds bosses at the club that particular night, and I wanted to show this boss how good I was at my job. What scared me most was that I seriously didn't care whether the man would die.
When I came home that night I said to myself, What have I become? To kill someone and not to care? Because I used to care; when I was a child I wanted to be a good person, but now all I was doing was hurt everyone around me; also I had everything, but inside I was empty and miserable. I was very promiscuous and using a lot of women. It was just an awful way of living.
One night I became aware of a voice speaking to my heart, a voice we all know, the God within us. I thought God was a nice little story made up to keep us from being bad, but here I was faced by the fact that God was real. All this scared me; I was very frightened, and it wasn't a nice conversion. People say that separation from God is hell, if that is true then I experienced it. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I cried out for another chance, not because I was sorry, but because I didn't want to stay in this desolation, and I walked out of that flat, and I said the first prayer I ever said in my life. I said, Up to now all I've done is take from you, God. Now I want to give. As I said that prayer that emptiness which had always filled my heart was finally filled with the love of God, and in that moment I knew God could love someone like me. Up to that moment I always thought I was useless, and that it didn't matter whether I lived or died. But that moment it did matter because God loved me.

When you became Christian, why did you turn to Roman Catholicism?
The only person I knew who had faith was my mom. She had had a conversion, so I went to her and told her my story. She replied that she had prayed for me every single day of my life, and that just two 2 weeks earlier she had prayed to Jesus to take me rather than seeing me hurt other people or myself. I know how much she must have loved me to pray that prayer; it must have broken her heart, but she was seeing the monster I was becoming. She suggested that I see the local priest, so I went to see him, and he told me that I had had a genuine conversion, and he suggested that I go on a retreat. I didn't have a clue what a retreat was. I though it was lying on the beach, bacardy drinks, and so on. It was on this retreat that I met about 250 young people. They enjoyed a freedom I had never seen before. I wanted this freedom, but I didn't know how to get it. I went to a talk by Fr. Zlatko Sudac from Medjugorje, called Give Me Your Wounded Heart. While he was giving this talk I was looking at the crucifix, and for the first time in my life I realised why Jesus had died on that Cross - for the darkest, most terrible sins I had ever committed. I was filled with real sorrow for my sins, but greater than this sorrow was this incredible joy in my heart. It was like Jesus saying to me, John, I love you so much, I'd go through all this again just for you. That time I cried for the first time since I was 10, because that love which I had wanted so much since my parents divorced was given back to me, and I was crying like a baby. I came out of that talk and said a prayer to Our Lady: What is it your son wants me to do? I had found a deep sense of the Virgin Mary in that talk, and I heard her whisper to my heart, Go to confession. Now I'd never been to confession before, and I was 27 years old. I had broken practically every commandment, but somehow Mary gave me the courage to go even though I was terrified. I was there for over an hour, and I was totally honest, I left nothing out. At the end of it the priest put his hand on my head, and I knew it was Jesus' hand and that He had truly forgiven me. Jesus' heart is like a window, on one side is his love pouring down every minute of every day, but on the other side are the stains of our sins, and I couldn't see how much I was loved, I could only see all the sins I had ever committed. The thing that touched me the most was that the priest himself was crying, because he knew I had met the mercy of Jesus. Then there was a Mass, and I had never been to any Mass before, so I couldn't understand all that talk about the host being the body of Jesus and so on. So I said a simple prayer, If this is true to You, Jesus, them show me because I don't understand. I received Jesus on that day, and the only way I can describe it  is that every good feeling I ever felt in my life was magnified a million times, and I knew two things. One, that Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul and divinity, was present in that sacrament, and the other that I would be a Catholic to the day that I died, for I had no doubt about any of the teachings of the Church. It was like an infusion of knowledge, that the Truth was in the Catholic Church.

Which character in the New Testament do you feel the greatest sympathy with?
There are two. The first is Saint Peter, because, like me, he was always putting his foot in it. He said things he shouldn't have said, and did things he shouldn't have done. He just reminds me so much of the mistakes I make, but he also had incredible courage which, through God's grace, I have as well. He didn't care what people thought, he just wanted to love Jesus. The other character is obviously Saint Paul. He had such an incredible grace of truth. He didn't care if they wanted to kill him. He just wanted to preach the truth of Christ, and that is what I want more than anything else in the world.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor said that the future for Christianity could lie in new movements, like Youth 2000, which you are personally involved in, and New Faith, and in the building of small Bible study and prayer groups. Do you agree?
Absolutely. I know and love the Cardinal very much. He is a man of vision who sees that these new movements, through the Holy Spirit, are helping the Church to grow and develop. Youth 2000 is very simple; it's really the sacraments, Our Lady, and the teachings of the Church. The reason why it works and brings young people to Christ is simply because we give them the sacraments. Many people think that we have to reinvent Christ's Will, but to me that Will is already here, and it is called the Catholic Church, which is called upon to promote the culture of life, and these new movements are part of the culture of life.

What spiritual projects do you have for the future?
In Ireland we've just set up a community which is in its third year now. There are six of us in this community. We live off God's providence; we don't earn any money. The retreats we organise are donation funded only, we would never allow a young person to not experience Christ for lack of money. We feel sure that if God wouldn't support us financially then it would mean that we are not doing things as He wants. We organise one day school retreats in Ireland where we get the young to experience the wonder of God's mercy, and to know his true presence in adoration.
We are also involved with parish missions. We give talks over the weekends in the parishes, and we enliven the sacraments on these occasions. We organise Eucharistic healing services where people touch the Blessed Sacrament and receive healing. We've had wonderful experiences in this connection, with many people telling us that they had met Jesus for the first time in their lives. We've also received incredible encouragement from parents, for example. One mother told me that her daughter, who had tried to commit suicide, was able to overcome her depression, and now prays the rosary and goes to Mass regularly.

Do you have a girlfriend? Is marriage in sight for you?
I was engaged to a girl once, but I didn't get married because I felt that I couldn't be married and do what I do. Even though I loved her I didn't love her enough to give up my greater love, which is evangelisation. In the community we take a year's commitment to poverty and chastity, so the girls have no boyfriends and the boys no girlfriends.
So marriage is not an option for me at the moment. I feel called to be a single lay-person; consecrated to God, but not a priest.

What image and experience do you have of God?
My image of God is of a Father. Everything I want to serve, and everything I want to be is God. The image is that of me as a little child in front of the throne of God, and God picking me up in his arms and holding me. Then God starts crying, and I ask Him why He's crying, and He replies that it's because He had never wanted me to suffer so much in my life. He is the Alpha and the Omega; He is beyond words and expressions. He is love, but the word love is so abused in our society.  Jesus is forever patient with me, forever encouraging me, forever bringing me closer to Him despite my unfaithfulness.

Some say the Church is cold and uncaring, and lacks a feeling of cohesiveness and family, so they lose interest in attending. What is your impression?
The Church is Christ, who is everything, so our inner emptiness can only be filled by the Church. We should look at the Church not so much in terms of the people it contains, but as the sacraments. If we bear in mind that Christ gives everything of himself, body, soul, blood and divinity, to us through the Church, and that He can't give us anything more, we will find it incomprehensible that some people should say that Mass is boring. When Cardinal Newman left the Anglican Church he lost his reputation and livelihood as a consequence, but he said, What is all that compared to receiving Jesus just once, in his body, blood, soul and divinity?
If we only understood the mystery and the wonder of what we are receiving, then Mass would never be boring. If I'm watching a film on TV, but I'm looking out of the window and paying no attention, I won't get anything out of it. The Church is no different. If we really put the effort in, put the prayer in, if we give of ourselves to reach out and help others in the Church and through the Church, then we will receive very many blessings, but if we think that the Church has to fulfil us while we remain passive, then we've got the wrong idea, because the Church can give only if she receives. Some members of the Church might be cold, but there are also many who aren't. We shouldn't look at the Church in human terms, but in divine terms.

Your life journey has brought you into contact with all sorts of people: from hardened criminals to very holy people like Mother Teresa. Could you describe someone who impressed you deeply?
One person was an old lady. She was housebound and had leukaemia. She was a Quaker, and loved God with all her heart. We used to pray together, and after that there would be a moment of silence, of waiting for something. Once she said a prayer that I will never forget because it was just like as if Jesus had been in her place. Two days before she died I went to the hospital and gave her a rosary. She said, I know what this is, this is Our Lady's hand, and she is talking to me about her son, Jesus.
The other person was a friend of mine who died at 38. He was baptised on his death bed. He was a man of great love and tenderness; he was the closest thing to Christ I ever came in contact with. He never judged anyone, all he did was love people. He had had a horrendous childhood yet, unlike me, he turned to love, care and understanding. I have two very good friends in heaven.

Has Saint Anthony ever played a role in your life?
Saint Anthony has played many roles in my life. In the image of him holding the Baby Jesus I can see the love that he has for the Baby Jesus. That's why the Baby Jesus appeared to him. I pray for his intercession to receive that same tenderness and gentleness which he has, especially before preaching I ask Saint Anthony to speak through me and pray through me, because he has the great gift of speaking with the love of Christ.
Finally, when I lose something I seek out his help. Once I actually 'bribed' him. I told him that I would given money to the poor if he helped me find a lost object, and it worked, I found it immediately!

BIOGRAPHY:
The son of a policeman, John was born in east London. Although baptised a Catholic, he had no Christian upbringing. After his parents divorced, he got involved in petty crime. At the age of 17 he was sent to a youth prison. After his release, he did security work at pop concerts for artists such as Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Queen, and then moved on to night clubs and bars in and around the capital.
He eventually drifted into the London underworld, and soon became a drug dealer and hard man, involved with notorious criminals for whom stabbings and shootings were common. He was heavily involved in organised crime, and was descending into a spiral of violence. One night at a busy bar in central London, he almost killed a man.
A few nights later he experienced a powerful conversion.
He soon became involved in Youth 2000, an international spiritual initiative for young people which is particularly active in the Catholic Church. He now lives in a Christian lay community just outside Dublin.
 
 

Agca says he is now a Catholic - April 30, 2009

In a letter written from a Turkish prison, Mehmet Ali Agca, author of the failed attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981, claims to have renounced Islam and embraced the Catholic faith.
Italian weekly Diva e people donna published the letter, French journal 7s7 reports.
"I am looking for an Italian woman, who wants to correspond with me. Obviously (I hope) she is Catholic because from May 13 2007, I decided to renounce the Muslim faith and becoming a member of the Roman Catholic Church," Agca writes.
"I have decided to return peacefully to the (St Peter's) square and to testify to the world of my conversion to Catholicism," he says in the letter written in Italian.
"Just for a day, I would wish to return to Rome to pray at the tomb of John Paul II to express my filial appreciation for his forgiveness," he adds.
Questioned by AFP in Turkey, his former lawyer Mustafa Demirbag, said he was "very skeptical" about the conversion, given the steps required to receive baptism.
Ali Agca also claimed to have expressed his desire to visit St Peter's Square to Pope Benedict XVI, without having received "no response to date". He also claimed to have informed the Vatican of his conversion.
"For the Vatican, I may still be the man who tried to assassinate the Polish Pope, but now I have changed, I am a different man," he says.

Is there a natural right to same-sex marriage?
Juan R. Vélez | Friday, 12 December 2008

No -- but sometimes the most obvious truths are the hardest to explain.

The people of California, Arizona and Florida recently voted to amend their state constitutions to defend the age-old truth that marriage is the life-long union of a man and a woman with the object of mutual love and the raising of a family. Ever since, those in favor of recognition of same-sex marriage have complained that they have been deprived of their civil rights and denied equality. The recognition of same-sex partnerships with legal and financial benefits akin to marriage is not enough for them. They repeatedly lament the supposed loss of their civil rights and compare themselves to oppressed slaves.
 

None. In fact proponents of same-sex marriage are usurping the natural and civil right to marriage between a man and a woman. Unfortunately defenders of traditional marriage often have trouble defending the obvious precisely because it is self-evident and defies sound bites. Here I’d like to present a few simple reasons why defending the uniqueness and dignity of traditional marriage is not discriminatory and unfair.

Biblical revelation about God’s creation of man and woman and his plan for marriage is abundant, but arguments for traditional marriage and against same-sex marriage are not exclusively religious. Far from it. The most convincing ones are based on universally recognised natural rights which exist prior to the state and are not created by government fiat or popular consent. Civil rights are the legal recognition of rights which derive from natural rights.

All one needs to do is reflect upon the human experience. It is easy to grasp that each human faculty, including the generative faculty, has its proper functions and ends. We can also discern basic human goods that are necessary for existence and social life, such as procreation, health, safety, freedom, friendship and religion.

Throughout the centuries people have come to recognize different rights -- such as the right to just trials, the right to practice a religion, and the right of universal suffrage. Civil rights are important mainly because they safeguard these basic human rights. Governments protect natural rights, but they do not create them.

Marriage is one of these basic human rights, one which is based on complementary sexual differences between men and women and the good of procreation. Marriage joins a male and a female in a way the involves the total person: soul, body and affections. Usually this union brings forth offspring and the children are raised in a stable environment where the children learn about manhood and womanhood. Children need both a father and a mother because each parent is different and as male and female provide for different needs.

For example, boys need a father to teach them how to respect women, to develop masculine traits and to learn discipline. A Nobel Prize laureate in economics, George Akerlof, has shown how the breakdown of marriage (1)  and the absence of a father in the family or some good father figure is related to the sharp rise of delinquency in the US. This alone is nearly conclusive evidence that there is no natural right to same-sex marriage.

What about the mutual affection of homosexuals? Isn’t that enough for marriage?

Not really. Homosexual persons can be united by an emotional union, but never by a biological union. Their sexual activity does not lead to procreation. Heterosexual marriage, on the other hand, involves more than this. “The same sexual act that unites the spouses is also the act that creates new life.”(2)  Heterosexual marriage provides offspring for society and a home where children are raised with the love of a father and a mother and the corresponding masculine and feminine role models.

Homosexual sex is essentially different from heterosexual sex within marriage. The conjugal act has an inherent language of self-giving expressed by the man’s giving of his progenitor cells to his wife. Their love is always linked to procreation even though procreation does not always follow the conjugal act. Widespread contraception and co-habitation have separated procreation from sexuality in such a way so that sexual acts between two persons of the same sex are now considered normal by many. But the sexual union of a man and a woman is objectively different.

Are we just quibbling about words here? Partnerships are more or less like marriage, people often argue. Why be so defensive about a few syllables?

But this approach is completely unrealistic. Marriage is more than a word. Words are subject to development, but they mean something. Words are conventional, but they represent fixed realities. No change in language or law can alter reality. Sodomy by any other name is still sodomy. Sexual intercourse between persons of the same-sex is not procreative. A meal is not a snack; work is not play; adultery mere consented sexual behavior among adults. Language both describes reality and defines moral standards. By changing accepted language about marriage, new moral standards regarding marriage and procreation gradually emerge.

If traditional marriage is natural, why does it need to be fenced around with laws? Can’t it fend for itself?

Yes and no. Traditional marriage will survive, but it needs the support and protection of society to flourish. Laws not only recognize existing natural rights; they create and solidify social habits and standards. A bad law creates social standards that others gradually come to accept as good and true. Abortion is an instructive example. What began as a rare concession has become a "right" to take the life of an innocent human being.

So the consequences of legal recognition of same-sex marriage are serious. The first will be moral damage to our understanding of human beings and marriage. By elevating human choices to the status of human rights, governments undermine the very idea of natural rights, which is the recognition of what corresponds to our human make-up and the basic goods necessary to flourish as human beings.

Legal recognition of same-sex marriage also threatens freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Those who disagree with same-sex unions, including educators, doctors and adoption agencies, are already being treated with contempt and intolerance by proponents of same-sex marriage. The next target is surely the tax-exempt status which churches enjoy because of their important service to society.

Furthermore, although proponents of same-sex marriage contend that they only want equality of rights for their own personal choices, they also want equality of esteem. The normality of same-sex marriage will be taught to school children, beginning with those in public schools and eventually reaching schools with religious affiliations.

Already in Massachusetts an adverse judicial ruling was passed against a parent who did not wish his children attending public school to be taught that two fathers can constitute a family. In San Francisco, young children have been obliged to witness a same-sex "marriage" ceremony. Forcing children to accept same-sex marriage as normal constitutes a grave abuse to children and their parents.

To be sure, every person deserves equal respect before the law; but equality is not sameness, and there can be no true respect for human rights apart from a clear understanding of human nature with the sexual and psychological differences between male and female, and the needs that children have for a father and a mother.

Juan R. Vélez is a Los Angeles Catholic priest. Before becoming a priest, he worked as a physician.

Notes
(1) Akerlof, GA, et al. "An Analysis of out-of-wedlock childbearing in the United States". Q J Econ. 1996 May; 111(2): 277-317.
(2) Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles, The Witherspoon Institute, Princeton, June 2006, p. 47.
 

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December 13, 2008
Vatican Issues Instruction on Bioethics
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

The Vatican issued its most authoritative and sweeping document on bioethical issues in more than 20 years on Friday, taking into account recent developments in biomedical technology and reinforcing the church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research.
The Vatican says these techniques violate the principles that every human life — even an embryo — is sacred, and that babies should be conceived only through intercourse by a married couple.
The 32-page instruction, titled “Dignitas Personae,” or “The Dignity of the Person,” was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, and carries the approval and the authority of Pope Benedict XVI.
Under discussion for six years, it is a moral response to bioethical questions raised in the 21 years since the congregation last issued instructions.
It bans the morning-after pill, the intrauterine device and the pill RU-486, saying these can result in what amount to abortions.
The Vatican document reiterates that the church is opposed to research on stem cells derived from embryos. But it does not oppose research on stem cells derived from adults; blood from umbilical cords; or fetuses “who have died of natural causes.”
The document does not prohibit the use of vaccines developed using “cell lines of illicit origin” if children’s health is at stake. But it says that “everyone has the duty” to inform health care providers of personal objections to such vaccines.
The church also objects to freezing embryos, arguing that doing so exposes them to potential damage and manipulation, and that it raises the problem of what to do with frozen embryos that are not implanted. There are at least 400,000 of these in the United States alone.
“Our advice is that freezing should not take place,” said Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for Life. “Because once it is done, you’re in a situation where to correct the error implies a further offense. Once you have them, what do you do with them?”
The Vatican’s intended audience is not only individual Roman Catholics, but also non-Catholic doctors, scientists, medical researchers and legislators who might consider regulating stem cell research and other recent developments in biomedical technology.
In the United States, President-elect Barack Obama has said he will end the restrictions on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research that were instituted by President Bush.
Among the new developments discussed in the document are the attempts by scientists to find alternative techniques of producing embryonic-like stem cells that could ultimately be used in medical treatments, without involving human embryos, said the Rev. Thomas Berg, executive director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, a Catholic ethics institute in New York. He said such techniques could “allow us to get past this cultural divide on stem cell research.”
Father Berg said he was pleased to see that the Vatican document did not prohibit such techniques, although it cautioned that there must be absolute assurance that human embryos were not destroyed in the process.
The document does little to clarify the Vatican’s position on whether couples can “adopt” surplus embryos that have been frozen and abandoned. Such “prenatal adoption,” although rare, has been promoted by some Catholics and evangelical Christians. The document says that while “prenatal adoption” is “praiseworthy,” it presents ethical problems similar to certain types of in vitro fertilization — in particular, surrogate motherhood, which the church prohibits.
Experts said that there was little new in this document, but that it might still come as a surprise to many Catholics who were unaware of the church’s ban on in vitro fertilization.
Kathleen M. Raviele, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Georgia who is president of the Catholic Medical Association, said she tells her patients: “God creates through an act of love, and that’s not what’s happening in the laboratory. It’s the technician who’s creating. What in vitro does, is it separates the creation of a child from the marital act.”
But the Vatican’s opposition to in vitro fertilization seemed neither moral nor intuitive to Josephine Johnston, a research scholar at the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institute in Garrison, N.Y.
“For a married couple who go to get in vitro fertilization, the Vatican’s idea that it’s not done with a serious amount of love and commitment is very bizarre to me, because it’s such a deliberate act, done in the cold light of day, with enormous amounts of thought and intention attached to it,” she said. “The idea that it’s not done within the spirit of marital love, I find very strange.”
Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, a Jesuit who is secretary of the doctrinal office, said at a news conference in Rome that the document would probably “be accused of containing too many bans.” Nonetheless, he said that the church felt a duty “to give voice to those who have no voice.”
Laurie Goodstein reported from New York, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.